The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

This film had less of an influence on fashion than fashion was the influence for the film.  Based on a book exposing the inner workings of a high fashion magazine, this film, costume designed by Patricia Field, known for her work on Sex and the City, featured a plethora of style and cosmopolitanism. It sets out to show the viewer the importance of fashion, and while it was critiqued for its shallowness for this exact reason, it is inarguable that actually, it had a point.

Miranda Priestley’s lengthy monologue outlining to her clueless assistant Andy that “this pile of…stuff” is the reason everyone wears what they wear today, that the “countless jobs and millions of dollars” in the fashion industry leaks down the scale and goes into influencing the high street to ensure that there is no escaping fashion no matter how much you try. Nigel, the creative director of the magazine where Andy works, reinforces this point when he explains to Andy that fashion is not just a fad that people follow, but art, and “greater than art because you live your life in it”. For those of us that knew this already, let us revel in the “art”.