JOMOPS

Submitted: 05.07.2023- Accepted: 28.07.2023

Year: July 2023- Volume: 4 - Issue: 1
DOI: 10.47333/modernizm.2023.95
JOURNAL OF MODERNISM AND POSTMODERNISM STUDIES
RESEARCH ARTICLE

BODY AND FASHION IN THE DEVIL ŞEYTAN MARKA GİYER’DE BEDEN VE

WEARS PRADA MODA

Nisa Harika GÜZEL KÖŞKER1

Abstract Öz
Questions central to the body encapsulate the idea of Beden olgusu ile ilgili olan tartışmalar genellikle baskın,
power that has been the fundamental ideological kolayca tüketilebilen kültürel unsurlar ve temsillerini
apparatus shaping the dominant, easily consumed şekillendiren güç unsurunu içermektedir. Beden tarih
cultural practices and their representations. boyunca bir tür güç merkezi olarak algılanmış, hem iyilik
Considering the associations attached to the body in hem de kötülük temsilleriyle ilişkilendirilmiştir.
the course of history, it can be construed as the locus Foucaultcu yaklaşıma göre beden, hem mikrop ve
of power as well as the basis for the circulation of good virüslerin yatağı hem de somut ve görsel anlamda haz
and evil. In the Foucauldian sense, it is the bed of merkezi olarak kuramsal bir çerçevede okunmuştur.
germs or viruses while it is also the seat of pleasure in Bedene ithaf edilen olumlu ve olumsuz çağrışımlar insan
both material and visual terms. Positive and negative bedeninin değiştirilmeye, dönüştürülmeye ve
connotations ascribed to the body have long been uygunlaştırmaya meyilli olmasından dolayı çeşitli
related to dominant ideologies, as it is prone to ideolojilerle ilişkilendirilmiştir. Bu doğrultuda, bu makale
interpellation, alteration, and/or appropriation. As such, bedenin Şeytan Marka Giyer (The Devil Wears Prada)
this article discusses the ways in which the body is (2006) başlıklı filmde güç unsurları tarafından ne yönde
challenged and appropriated by power mechanisms in değiştirilmeye ve uygunlaştırılmaya çalışıldığını
David Frankel’s The Devil Wears Prada (2006), based tartışmaktadır. Film, bedenin moda ve tüketim gibi
on Lauren Weisberger’s novel of the same title. The belirleyici etkenler aracılığıyla hangi yönlerden
movie revolves around the issues of the body, its uygunlaştırıldığı üzerine eleştiriler sunmaktadır. Güzellik
appropriation through certain determinants such as ve kadınlık olguları üzerine tartışmalar öne süren film,
fashion and consumerism. It poses critical questions as modanın bir güç mekanizması olarak insan bedenini
to how fashion as a mechanism of power alters, nasıl değiştirdiği, şekillendirdiği ve dönüştürdüğü ile ilgili
shapes, and transforms the human body, experimenting eleştirel sorular yöneltmektedir. Bu soruları merkeze
with the perceptions of beauty and femininity. Placing a alan film, bir güç aracı olarak bedene ve kimlik
critical light on such issues, the movie moves beyond oluşumuna yön veren moda endüstrisini
classic romantic comedy in its attempt to problematize sorunsallaştırarak, klasik bir romantik komedi türünün
the fashion industry as an instrument of power that ötesine geçmektedir. Bu makale, bedenin politik bir
structures bodies and identities. Building on the view varlık olduğu yönündeki tartışmaları temel alarak, ana
that the body is a political entity, this article analyzes karakter Andy’nin ilk başta reddettiği ancak daha sonra
the transformation of the protagonist, Andy, in her hayatını çevreleyen moda endüstrisi ile ilişkisi
relation to the fashion industry, exploring the ways in bağlamında geçirdiği dönüşümü irdelemekte, Andy’nin

1
Assist. Prof. Dr., Ankara University, Department of American Culture and Literature, nkosker@ankara.edu.tr ORCID:0000-0003-
0200-565X .

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which fashion appropriates Andy in her quest from her kendisine acımasız ve belirsiz bir ortam sunan Runway
initial rejection of fashion to her later struggle to find moda dergisinde bir yer edinebilme çabası süresince
herself a place in the merciless and precarious milieu moda kavramının Andy’i ne yönde uygunlaştırdığını
of Runway fashion magazine. incelemektedir.

Keywords: Body, Ideology, Fashion, American Cinema, Anahtar Kelimeler: Beden, İdeoloji, Moda, American
Cultural Studies Sineması, Kültürel Çalışmalar

In his seminal Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Michel Foucault
claims that the body is “directly involved in a political field; power relations have an
immediate hold upon it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks,
to perform ceremonies, to emit signs” (25). In line with this argument involving the
associations attached to the human body in the course of history, the human body can be
viewed as the basis of the circulation of the evil and good “events” (Foucault 25), and thus
as the locus of power relations. On the one hand, it is the bed of microorganisms, emitting
“germs or viruses”; on the other hand, it is the “seat” (Foucault 25) of pleasure both in a
material sense and in visual terms. Positive and negative associations attached to the
body have been related to ideology and use of power, mainly because it can easily be
subjected to alteration or appropriation. Equally, such “political investment of the body”,
maintains Foucault, is “bound up, in accordance with complex reciprocal relations, with its
economic use; it is largely as a force of production that the body is invested with relations
of power and domination” (25-26). This coercion is further related to the body’s
“constitution as labour power” that is “possible only if it is caught up in a system of
subjection (in which need is also a political instrument meticulously prepared, calculated
and used); the body becomes a useful force only if it is both a productive body and a
subjected body” (Foucault 26).

What Foucault meticulously puts down is the manifest immersion of the body in the
coercion systems that rob it of its liberty and control. The human body that is
interpellated, regulated and appropriated has been the tool of ideologies of power that
structures it and produces a novel version of it for its own use. If the body, as Foucault
emphasizes, is the main representation and, in addition, an instrument- or a central
space- of the formation of political and ideological relations and norms, then it also
informs the contemporary popular images and ideologies ruling the mainstream culture. In
line with all these discussions of power and the body, this article argues the ways in which
the body is appropriated into power mechanisms deploying images shaping the social and
cultural norms in the American movie, The Devil Wears Prada (2006). The movie is replete

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with the images of the body, its appropriation through certain determinants such as
fashion and alluring consumerist practices that display the body as a spectacle that in
return reflects the structuring ideology itself. The movie is also saturated with the
prevailing visual media characterized by the fashion business, primarily because of its
setting, the ever-reflecting photographic atmosphere of the office of Runway magazine.
The devil boss of Runway and the most significant figure in the industry of fashion,
Miranda Priestly operates as the controlling eye, the master of the gaze, and the coercive
imperative power regulating and ruling the bodies around.

Adapted to the screen by Aline Brosh McKenna from Lauren Weisberger’s novel
The Devil Wears Prada (2003) and directed by David Frankel (2006), the movie recounts
Andrea’s (Anne Hathaway) professional quest not in her dream job as a journalist or a
writer, but as an assistant to the chief editor, Miranda Priestly (Merlyn Streep), in the
pitiless and unsympathetic setting of Runway fashion magazine. Critic Thomas Doherty
defined the movie as “a fashionista coming-of-age story in which Anne Hathaway learns
what to wear and weigh, the label gets its name on the marquee” (26). Andrea’s role as
“an aspiring writer who has spent too much time with the New Yorker and not enough
with Vogue” (Doherty 26) determines her intriguing relation to fashion as a power
mechanism, as it places a considerable distance between the movie and the romantic
comedy genre. Nathan Lee calls the movie “a fabulous comedy of power” (71), contending
that “Aline Brosh McKenna’s script is shrewd about what it takes to ascend to and
command the pinnacle of the spectacle industry: demanding the impossible with the
utmost severity and meaning” (72). In a similar fashion, Janet Brennan Croft maintains
that “The Devil Wears Prada seems nearly unique in foregrounding a mentoring
relationship of the sort that is, if not entirely pleasant for the mentee, at least
straightforward about the demands, risks, and rewards involved” (57), stating that
Miranda “sets her protegee tasks that force her to push her abilities to their limits”, which
results in “an important moment of rebellion essential to Andy’s development” (58).
Though, as Croft suggests, Miranda may seem to be pushing Andy’s progress forward at
first sight, she in fact appropriates her to her own use and to the complexities of the
fashion industry in an implicit power relation. Concerning such existing power structures
represented in the diegesis, the movie offers yet another way to observe the idealized
images of the female body that is prone to the appropriation of the fashion industry and
its ever-changing demands.

C. Scott Hemphill and Jeannie Suk identify fashion as “the most immediate visible
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marker of representation” that “communicates meanings that have individual and social
significance” (1151). Andy’s inexperienced stance in relation to the hassles of the fashion
industry takes the audience to the exploration of novel ways through which to view the
social and cultural restrictions on the individuals and their bodies. The significant place
the body holds in the movie can be observed right from the beginning: The opening credits
feature various young women at their homes getting ready to go out with a focus on their
naked, slender bodies, and fashionable clothes, appearing consecutively right after Andy
is seen brushing her teeth in the mirror. The mirror anticipates the identification and
appropriation process to which Andy will soon be exposed in Miranda’s hands in Runway.
Whereas she is shown only performing her self-care routines and wearing her casual
clothes, anonymous women representing the fashionable lifestyle in New York City, their
nude bodies with luxury clothes and underwear, accessories, and fashionable high heels
contrast sharply with Andy’s ordinary look and “plump” (The Devil Wears Prada) body, as
Miranda calls it. Each rapidly changing cinematic frame exposing the ideal female body is
juxtaposed with Andy’s body that is yet to be cultivated at the mercy of Miranda and in
line with fashion standards. The fashion world Runway encapsulates is a ferocious one as
Emily, Miranda’s assistant, articulates it the moment she meets Andy (The Devil Wears
Prada). Emily recapitulates that they look for people to survive in the job when referring to
Miranda’s effective position in the business, saying “Million girls would kill for this job”
(The Devil Wears Prada). Andy’s naivety surfaces as she asks who Miranda is to Emily
who dismisses the question right away, foregrounding Miranda’s position as the “editor-
in-chief of Runway, not to mention her legend” (The Devil Wears Prada). Upon Andy’s
statement that “she would love to be considered” (The Devil Wears Prada) for the job,
Emily’s contemptuous smile and statement “Runway is a fashion magazine and interest in
fashion is crucial” (The Devil Wears Prada) epitomizes the ideology of fashion as a
cultural mediator that edifies consumerist practices. Andy’s manners and words give her
away as an ineligible prospective assistant without such a crucial interest in fashion. The
following scene in which all employees get their stuff together and “gird [their] loins” (The
Devil Wears Prada), as Nigel states it, and change their sneakers to fashionable high
heels upon hearing that Miranda is very soon on her way exemplifies the impact of
Miranda as a much-feared governing figure, or “the dragon lady” (The Devil Wears Prada),
and the significance of fashion as a mechanism of ruling power in Runway. That Nigel
offers Andy high heels by advising that she will need them now that she is working for
Miranda affirms the ideological construct of fashion, which altogether points to the fact

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that consumerist culture constructs uniform bodies and minds through fashion.

Nigel relates the production and consumption of fashion to the visual economy of
the ideal body and restrictive standards of beauty. Though Andy states that this is only “a
job that pays the rent” (The Devil Wears Prada), and though Andy at first looks down on
fashion and feels that she is at a superior position as an educated journalist, fashion is “a
word with many meanings” (Sterlacci and Joanna ix), which signify a larger set of psychic
social mechanisms at work in the formation and implementation of power and
consumerist practices. Miranda’s association with the devil figure reinforces the norms
Miranda and Runway impose on the body, mind and manners that are all indicative of the
constrictive instructions and the enforced normativity for individuals to follow. It is obvious
in the movie that the fashion industry is very dissimilar from the life Andy lives until
Miranda gives her a chance to work as her assistant. The fashion business is presented
as a prosthetic environment subservient to the demands of the fashion industry. Miranda
as the fiendish figure translates Runway into a space of appropriation and a site to
produce prototype subjects, in Althusserian sense, which refers to the creation of subjects
that exist only to be rendered serviceable to a higher subject. Louis Althusser in his
Reproduction of Capitalism: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses calls this
mechanism “interpellation or hailing” (288). Interpellation refers to the act of interposing,
interceding, or interrupting. All these acts endorse a process of appropriation whereby the
subject who is hailed is being fitted into an ideological system, which becomes formative
in the creation of new “subjects” (Althusser 287) that cannot escape becoming subjected
to a higher authoritarian subject. Althusser depicts this process of subjectification with
the example of the police hailing a person walking on the street as, “Hey, you there!”
(288). In this instance, he concludes that since the person on the street is called out by
the police, they turn around and look at them (the converter) thinking that they are the
one who are being addressed to (Althusser 288). Whether it is a “verbal call or whistle”,
“the one hailed always recognizes that it is really him who is being hailed” (Althusser 288).

Althusser conveys Foucault’s theorization of the body to a level where he suggests

that ideologies drive individuals to submission and a process of coercion. For Althusser,
ideology itself, or an apparatus working for an ideology, is tantamount to the interpellation
of individuals as subjects, for it “presupposes the ‘existence’ of a Unique and central
Other Subject, in whose name the religious ideology interpellates all individuals as
subjects” (293). It can thus be conferred that the individual is created, recognized, and
rendered a subordinate subject in relation to and for the service of a superior subject.
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Another aspect of this process is its reflective quality as it is contingent on the recognition
on both parts and the subsequent formation of the hailed subject in the hands of the
higher subject. Relating the process of interpellation to the creation of ideology, Althusser
argues that the “duplicate mirror-structure of ideology ensures”:

1.The interpellation of ‘individuals’ as subjects;

2.Their subjection to the Subject;

3.The mutual recognition of subjects and Subject, the subjects’ recognition of

each other, and finally the subject’s recognition of himself;

4.The absolute guarantee that everything really is so, and that on condition that
the subjects recognize what they are and behave accordingly, everything will be
all right: Amen – ‘So be it’ (391).

Althusser critiques the withering power of ideology to appropriate the subject for its
own purposes through the bodily and ideological conversion, and therefore to transform
one’s authentic subjectivity as they surrender to a higher subject. Consequently, the self
loses its genuine identity, and the idea of subjectivity fails to fulfill its very meaning in
essence. The body, in Althusser’s instance, is incited, disconcerted, and allured into
becoming a subject in a structure that exists outside the borders of its own entity. Thus,
“the category of the subject is constitutive of all ideology”, and it is “constitutive of every
ideology only insofar as every ideology has the function (which defines it) of ‘constituting’
concrete subjects (such as you and me)” (Althusser 285). With the recognition of the
higher interpellating and controlling subject, the subservient subject, who quintessentially
becomes the object in the hands of this higher subject, enters the sphere of ideology, for
the “functioning of all ideology exists in the play of this twofold constitution, since
ideology is nothing but its functioning in the material forms of existence of that
functioning” (Althusser 285). The diegesis of The Devil Wears Prada conjures this
“twofold constitution” (Althusser 285) in the relationship between Miranda and Andy, as
Miranda draws Andy from her intact life and beliefs she holds dear into her own ideology.
Miranda causes a change not only in Andy’s attires but also in her body shape and beliefs
towards fashion. The more Andy endeavors to be acknowledged and accepted to the
fashion ideology that Miranda governs, the more she accepts the rules of the fashion
world and the slimmer she gets. Miranda’s surveillance system can be assumed to be an
epitome of “the power that is applied to individuals in the form of continuous individual
supervision, in the form of control, punishment, and compensation, and in the form of

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correction, that is, the molding and transformation of individuals in terms of certain
norms” (Foucault, Power 70).

The movie illustrates this practice of interpellation through the medium of

fashion as a mechanism of power. The process of interpellation starts with the first
moment when Miranda sees Andy in her office and asks her who she is and what she is
doing there (The Devil Wears Prada). The concurrent questions she asks as to her name
and her knowledge of fashion leave Andy vulnerable, revealing her lack of knowledge in
fashion. That Miranda misnames Andy as Emily on her first day of work increases Andy’s
anxiety of confrontation with the failure of recognition that Miranda systematically
performs on her. Though Andy corrects Miranda saying that her name is Andrea, or Andy,
as people call her, the feeling of misrecognition heightens when Miranda asks her to bring
skirts from Calvin Klein, or whether Patrick Demarchelier, the French fashion
photographer, has sent confirmation (The Devil Wears Prada). After Miranda calls her by
Emily’s name, Andy is pushed totally into the world of images of fashion that she is not
familiar with. She feels lost as she has no knowledge of the well-known names, brands,
events, or the codes of fashion Miranda talks about. Miranda’s reluctance to call Andy by
her actual name is also caused by Miranda’s visible dislike for her style. Nigel certainly
knows that Miranda is calling Andy while Andy is bewildered by her action. In the process
of interpellation, Andy is “the new Emily” ( The Devil Wears Prada), hailed away from her
own identity, and drawn into Miranda’s world and subjectivity. This case of
mispronunciation leads Andy to interrogate herself and her identity, causing her to feel
incompetent and insufficient. Out of this confusion, she pinpoints her own identity in a
form that is to be recognized by Miranda and everybody around, and molds herself into
their demands. Her confusion increases when Miranda calls her Emily while she is leaving
her office, Andy turns back and answers, “Yes” (The Devil Wears Prada). She is certain
that Miranda is calling her, even though it is by a different name. Miranda’s recurrent
statement “That’s all!” - which she uses for humiliation and putting an end to a
conversation in a tone of superiority- pushes Andy as the interpellated subject to be under
its spell, rendering her feel inadequate and ready to compensate for whatever mistake she
makes. Andy’s totally alien stance to fashion makes her become more and more
subjugated in Miranda’s eyes. Andy now feels more profoundly that she is a stranger to
the fashion system when she asks the person on the phone to spell the word “Gabbana”
(The Devil Wears Prada) and when that person hangs up on her afterwards.

In The Fashion System (1967), Roland Barthes argues that fashion refers to a
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system of signs that denote more than mere clothing and “every new Fashion is a refusal
to inherit, a subversion against the oppression of the preceding Fashion” (273). Barthes’s
emphasis on the ephemerality of fashion relates the proliferation of fashion - as it
“experiences itself as a right, the natural right of the present over the past”- to the social
construct of fashion as a consumerist practice. Barthes states that “fashion becomes a
narrative” (277) and is “exempt from time: Fashion does not evolve, it changes: its lexicon
is new every year, like that of a language which always keeps the same system but
suddenly and regularly changes the currency of its words” (215). As Andy is immersed
more in the semiotics of fashion, she recognizes that fashion is a system of signs and has
a language of its own. Right from the beginning, Andy and her relatively curvy body stand
in marked contrast to the girls working for Miranda in Runway. She is not even given a
notice and seems more like an outsider in her clothes and awkward posture as she enters
the skyscraper. The fashion industry illustrated in Runway is echoing with tips on clothing,
hair style, boundless commercials, or ads promoting the ideal look of the body. Fashion
functions like an epidemic wrapping each single body and transforming every object into a
sign by inserting a wider network of meanings. This transformation creates images that
come in between the self and the world around, helping the formation of an accumulation
of images in one powerful mechanism. The articulation of the fact that this ideology works
so mischievously as a social construct can be observed in the Run-Through scene which
hosts a tension between Miranda and Andy when Andy laughs at Miranda and her team’s
evaluation of the nearly identical belts as quite distinct from each other:

Miranda: This... stuff? Okay. I understand. You think this has nothing to do with
you. You go to your closet and select, say, that lumpy blue sweater because
you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about
what's on your body. What you don't know is that your sweater is not blue. It's not
even sky blue. It's cerulean. You also don't know that in 2002, De La Renta did a
collection of cerulean gowns, Yves St. Laurent showed a cerulean military jacket,
Dolce did skirts with cerulean beads, and in our September issue we did the
definitive layout on the color. Cerulean quickly appeared in eight other major
collections, then the secondary and department store lines and then trickled
down to some lovely Casual Corner, where you no doubt stumbled on it.

That color is worth millions of dollars and many jobs. And here you are, thinking
you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry. In truth, you
are wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From
a pile of stuff (The Devil Wears Prada).

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What Andy calls “the stuff” (The Devil Wears Prada) is the gist of fashion itself for
Miranda when she describes the belts as being quite distinct from each other. Having
delivered her informal lecture on the fashion industry, Miranda dismisses any potential
answer from Andy by terminating any kind of dialogue or comment through “That’s all!”
(The Devil Wears Prada), which once again renders Andy’s position inferior in relation to
Miranda’s supremacy. This scene dramatizes how Andy’s body and thoughts are fractured
as Miranda’s performance of interpellation continues together with Nigel and Emily’s
dissenting nods. While Miranda relates the processes through which the cerulean blue
goes through until it finds its destination, she in fact highlights how minimal role the
consumers have in the fashion industry and how easily consumers can be interpellated.
Andy’s “lumpy blue sweater” (The Devil Wears Prada) functions as the epitome of the
miniscule role the consumers play in the fashion industry. Though Miranda declares that
the fashion industry provides “countless jobs” (The Devil Wears Prada) for people, her
speech divulges the socially seemingly invisible relation between the individual and the
fashion industry as she articulates that no one is exempt from this industry (The Devil
Wears Prada).

Miranda’s words delineate that the fashion ideology determines the human
decisions in the guise of a dazzling industry, which furthermore points to the critique of
the boosted consumerist culture as an outcome of a ceaseless process of creating the
latest and fashionable images and clothes alongside the rapid circulation of fashion items.
As is clear in her speech, the fashion ideology comes into existence as a power
mechanism, a kind of higher social structure changing and appropriating people’s minds
and bodies. In line with Barthes’s theorization of fashion, Miranda moreover indicates the
slippery nature of fashion and how objects are designed for fast and conspicuous
consumption. Sociologist Georg Simmel (1957) deepens the relation between fashion and
practices of capitalist consumption by maintaining that “fashion is a form of imitation and
so of social equalization, but, paradoxically, in changing incessantly, it differentiates one
time from another and one social stratum from another” (541). Fashion, Simmel
maintains, “unites those of a social class and segregates them from others. The elite
initiates a fashion and, when the mass imitates it in an effort to obliterate the external
distinctions of class, abandons it for a newer mode - a process that quickens with the
increase of wealth” (541). Thus, as Cassandra Elrod contends, the Run-Through scene
elucidates “the top-down process of copying from high-end fashion designers and then
trickling down to lower quality retail stores and eventually the clearance bin in order to

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make room for new merchandise” (579-580). Andy critiques such overriding consumerist
practices in a confident tone when she asserts that she is not “going to be in fashion
forever” and she does not “see any reason to change everything about [herself]” just
because she has this job (The Devil Wears Prada). Nigel’s response to Andy’s statements
ironically sums up the fashion industry when he claims that “That’s what this multi-
million-dollar industry is all about. Inner beauty” (The Devil Wears Prada). For Andy,
fashion is an insignificant issue turned into a business with “the amount of time and
energy” (The Devil Wears Prada) people spend on “things that don’t matter” so that
“tomorrow they can spend an extra 300.000 dollars reshooting something that was
probably fine to begin with? To sell people things they don’t need?” (The Devil Wears
Prada).

Andy summarizes the impositions of the consumerist culture that does not seem
logical to her boyfriend, Nate. Up to this point, Andy seems convinced of her own opinions
until Miranda humiliates her because of her inability to book a flight for her twins’ recital.
Although she does her best to book a flight from Miami to New York – which has been
cancelled due to the hurricane-, Miranda accepts no excuses and explains why she hired
her. This scene becomes a turning point for Andy in her adaptation of herself to Miranda’s
standards: Andy’s body stands in confirmation of whatever Miranda would tell her as
Miranda looks in her face to express her anger. Miranda states that she always hires “the
same girl, stylish, slender” who “worships the magazine. And often they turn out to be
disappointing and stupid” (The Devil Wears Prada). Miranda’s confession about her belief
in Andy’s intellect, “fancy resume and big speech” about her “so-called work ethic” (The
Devil Wears Prada) functions as a statement to overwhelm Andy by foregrounding Andy’s
failure to conform with Miranda’s ideas. Miranda hails Andy once again as the “smart, fat
girl” (The Devil Wears Prada) in comparison with other skinny women in Runway. Though
Andy is not “fat” and does all that is humanly possible to book a flight, Miranda
accentuates her disappointment, once again deriding her with her infamous phrase
“That’s all!” (The Devil Wears Prada). Andy’s humble and subordinate position in the face
of Miranda’s diabolical statements results in her tears and compliance. Andy’s conviction
that Miranda “hates her” and she will “unacknowledge” (The Devil Wears Prada) whatever
she does intensifies the process of interpellation. Andy’s unwillingness to resign even
after Nigel suggests that she quit the job if she cannot cope with Miranda’s viciousness
hastens her assimilation to Miranda’s ideas and the world of fashion.

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Nigel’s comment “you are not trying; you are whining” (The Devil Wears Prada)
triggers Andy’s desire to seek his help to have a sound position in Miranda’s office and
the fashion industry. With a focus on the works of such designers as Dolce, Chanel, Jimmy
Choo, Manolo Blahnik, Nanoy Gonzales, and Narciso Rodriguez, she is now “killing herself
trying” (The Devil Wears Prada) to comply with Miranda’s wishes and demands. For Nigel,
Andy is only a six, merely the number of her size that measures her identity. Thus, Andy’s
worth is measurable solely by her body size which is to be appropriated in accordance
with the ideal female body standards. This time around, Andy conforms to the fashion
rules and styles. Nigel’s accusation of Andy’s disinterest urges her to care about fashion:
From “deign[ing] to work”, she comes to “die to work” (The Devil Wears Prada). Andy
turns into what she calls “the clackers” (The Devil Wears Prada) with her stilettoes and
brand-new fashionable clothes. After a period, Andy adopts herself to Miranda’s ideas,
changing herself and the way she thinks of fashion and its overwhelming power in the
business. Performing both personal and professional tasks of Miranda, Andy seems to be
excelling in her job, and is now convinced that this is “[her] break, [her] chance” and that
being “Miranda’s assistant opens a lot of doors” (The Devil Wears Prada).

The atmosphere of panic and fear that Andy observes initially in Miranda’s office
evolves into a power relation that includes her recognition of her body and identity in
fashionable and aesthetic terms. Since fashion is viewed as “central to” an “ideology of
this aesthetic self-realization” (Svendsen 142) in a circulation of production and
consumption, Andy’s stance in relation to the fashion industry explains the impact of
fashion on the articulation and interpellation of the body, in particular the female
embodiment. She is constantly called to recognize the contrast between what seems to be
her despicable self and the idealized body, as she is “ironically subjected to the pressure
of compliance with socially acceptable norms of the body”, which is “informed by the
social practices and values” that are “of specific importance in the construction of the
notions of beauty and acceptable images of femininity which are defined in terms of the
attainment of a physique that is either mildly muscly and slender, or curvy and firm—i.e., a
body without fat” (Atayurt Fenge 1230-1231). First Miranda with her ever-watching gaze
and humiliating statements and then Nigel with his ironic remarks criticize Andy’s clothing
and body shape. Just like her body size, another crucial point where Andy is asked to
awaken herself to her physical appearance is when Nigel brings for her eight and a half
high-heeled shoes. Andy kindly turns his offer down, avowing she does not need them as
she believes that Miranda has hired her the way she looks (The Devil Wears Prada). Nigel

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asks an authoritative question that creates a graphic effect about Andy’s body image on
her mind: “Do you?” (The Devil Wears Prada). This question invites Andy to the world of
fashion by pushing her to recognize her own style as decadent and shabby. When Andy
says that her size is six, Nigel immediately corrects her ironically claiming that six is now
“the new fourteen” and the fashion industry is all about physical appearance ( The Devil
Wears Prada). The sample sizes in Runway are only two and four that do not fit for Andy.

In line with Nigel’s articulation of the ideal female body standards, the perfect
female embodiment does not accept Andy’s preference for corn chowder, one ingredient
of which is cellulite. In Althusserian sense, Andy is forced to recognize an alternative self,
a subject other than her own as her body acquires new meanings in the fashion world she
is exposed to. From this point on Andy wishes to change herself, which starts her and her
body’s appropriation to the fashion values and to Miranda’s liking. Even her boyfriend,
Nate, does not recognize her at first sight in her new clothes. Nate finds it hard to
recognize Andy in her Chanel boots: He looks at her, turns his head, and then looks back
at Andy again with perplexity. The recognition Andy lost in her former life is replaced by
the recognition Andy is now struggling to attain in her attempt to obtain Miranda’s
appreciation and acknowledgement. Andy’s appropriation into the fashion industry follows
a linear scheme from this moment on. Until this point, Andy has been a plump yet a smart
girl for Miranda. When Andy cannot arrange a flight for Miranda from Miami to New York
and causes Miranda to miss her twin’s recital, Miranda admits that she is not different
from the skinny and fashionable but useless girls (The Devil Wears Prada). Offended by
Miranda’s talk, Andy rushes to Nigel’s office, which is like a display window with many
photographs and frames enlightened by the spotlights. Nigel is shown arranging the
photos and making them ready for print. Nigel changes Andy’s thoughts as he glorifies
fashion and legendary fashion designers. For Nigel, what fashion designers created is
greater than art. This scene is also important in that in every corner of the office there is a
series of female photographs gazing at Andy. The juxtaposition of the still and moving
photographic images anticipates Andy’s conversion into a skinnier and fashionable female
subject not unlike the figures in the framed photographs. The moment Nigel and Andy
enter the closet of Runway, the camera shoots objects with a focus on the details:
Earrings, high heels, coats, dresses that Nigel mention to glorify the fashion industry.
Nigel praises clothes created under the grand brands such as Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel,
or Dolce and Gabbana to express the dominance of these brands in the business. The
images conjured into and incorporated within the fashion ideology are so powerful that

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they organize the visual field in a sign system of sociocultural exchange and consequently
determine the way in which subjects seem to experience their subjectivity, while they fail
to recognize their interpellation by the fashion business itself. Fashion in the movie thus
emerges as an ideological structure adjusting the subjects into its policies. To step out of
the sketched bodies and clothes means to become unfashionable together with the loss of
one’s produced subjectivity.

With its ever-shifting yet restrictive expectations, fashion sculptures Andy’s body
and Andy seems much more content with her new appearance. Her body looks slimmer,
producing various subjects as she appears like a model posing in various clothes after her
transformation in the scene where she is entering the Runway building. As she becomes
subjected to the higher structure, her body is presented in different fashionable clothes.
Each changing cinematic frame is supposed to be moving, but they are shot as if they
were still photographic images in the scene, where Andy is photographed, inscribed, or
captured visually within the image repertoire of fashion. The most striking scene of
interpellation can be observed when Miranda first sees Andy in her new clothes and
hairstyle. The Althusserian “mutual recognition of subjects” (Althusser 391) takes place
when Miranda stares at her and looks up and down, exposing her satisfaction with her
new look. Correspondingly, Andy recognizes Miranda’s smile and is glad that Miranda now
concedes her presence. It is only after this exchange that Miranda acknowledges Andy
and calls her by her real name.

Andy’s conversion into the devil’s ideology is achieved through her body’s
transformation into slimmer shape and her preference for fashionable clothes. When Andy
explains to Emily the fact that she has no choice other than accepting Miranda’s offer to
go to Paris with her, Emily directly says, “Face it. You have sold your soul on the day you
put on that first pair of Jimmy Choo’s” (The Devil Wears Prada). The title of the movie
introduces Miranda as the most powerful image of the boss from hell. Miranda is the devil
wearing and advertising the brands that identify and glorify her and giving her the power
to change Andy’s previously untainted world. Similarly, the fashion world idealizes
Miranda as the devil boss so that she could fashion the bodies and manners of the
employees and, on the larger level, the social codes, and the rate of consumption. In
Althusserian sense, Miranda plays the role of the police who is persistently hailing the
walker, Andy, to convert her to her ideology. In contrast to Andy’s former self that is, for
Emily, a “complete and utter disaster” (The Devil Wears Prada), Andy is allured to the
tenets of the fashion industry in her fashionable clothes. Andy’s immersion in fashion
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intensifies as she believes more and more in Miranda’s words and as she draws farther
away from her friends. Nate and Doug voice two distinct views about fashion. Nate, on the
one hand, highlights the rapid consumption due to fashion while Andy’s friend Doug
articulates, “Fashion is not about utility. An accessory is merely a piece of iconography
used to express individual identity” (The Devil Wears Prada). Doug’s words contribute to
Miranda’s acts, which characterize the visual world of Runway to launch icons for the new
trends. As the devil defying all other absolute forms of power and as the “fashion’s great
gatekeeper” (The Devil Wears Prada), she delivers the last judgment for Runway and
carries it like a holy book in her arms. Runway can thus also be regarded as the holy visual
text defining what Miranda thinks is the next trend in fashion.

Andy’s immersion in the fashion industry can also be regarded as an inner

identification with the devil’s ideology. What is formerly a matter of joke about fashion is
now a matter of life and death for Andy. Leaving behind Nate and her friends, she pays a
visit to James Colt’s loft upon Miranda’s call. Her inner identification with “the dragon
lady” (The Devil Wears Prada) is materialized when she tells James Colt, one of the top
designers, that she is there “picking up for” Miranda Priestly (The Devil Wears Prada).
Still, since her position has not yet become firm in the fashion business, James Colt meets
her as the “new Emily” (The Devil Wears Prada), not Andy. Her identification is yet to be
materialized when James Colt, another devilish figure, tests her for her bag that he himself
designed. He defines the handbag as “open-woven leather, pieced by hand and finished
with a suede trim” and asks her immediately as to “Who made this fantastic thing?” (The
Devil Wears Prada). Andy succeeds in the test by giving the right answer and is accepted
into the privilege of seeing James Colt’s “top-secret” (The Devil Wears Prada) designs.
James Colt’s interpellation of Andy into the secrets of his own collection is inhibited by the
famous writer Christian Thompson for whom Andy can “never survive Miranda” (The Devil
Wears Prada) with such a smart mind. Christian Thompson differentiates working for the
fashion industry from being smart and intellectual when he tells Andy that she has “a
point of view” (The Devil Wears Prada) and she cannot work as an assistant for Miranda
Priestly. Andy’s disbelief in Christian Thompson perpetuates her process to become a
“Miranda girl” (The Devil Wears Prada). All the transformation Andy’s body and mind go
through confirms the dominant belief in the office of Runway that Miranda’s opinion is
“the only one that matters” (The Devil Wears Prada), and all the workers follow her
footsteps. The Preview scene proves Miranda’s superior position in the dislike she shows

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for James Colt’s new collection. Even James Colt loses his significance as one of the
leading designers in the fashion business with just a pursing of her lips.

Miranda’s seemingly confident air is in essence a power system that manipulates

all the people around. Hailing Andy with her name for the first time, Miranda deceives
Andy into believing that she is doing the right thing. Only when Andy fulfills every task
impeccably and with confidence, Miranda calls her by her real name, Andrea, and asks her
to bring Runway, to her town house. Miranda herself treats Runway as if it were a holy
book that is to be taken the utmost care of. The task of taking the holy book to home is
another challenge for Andy no matter how confident she feels after all the errands she has
completed. Emily’s words as to the nature of this mission points to the fact that Andy
must “guard this with” her “life” and be “really invisible” (The Devil Wears Prada) during
her visit to Miranda’s house. Andy’s susceptibility is also highlighted when Andy is once
again deceived into bringing the book upstairs by the twins in Miranda’s house though
Emily told her to do exactly the otherwise. Andy is caught up by Miranda upstairs while
she is witnessing her quarrel with her husband. Miranda punishes Andy by pushing her
into more hardships the moment she requests the unpublished manuscript of Harry
Potter. Refusing to eat the steak which she herself asked for, she orders Andy to bring the
last Harry Potter manuscript in a short time and not to come back if she does not bring it
in time. Miranda is surely playing cat and mouse with Andy as a punishment for her
violation of her personal space during her quarrel with her spouse.

For Andy’s friends, Andy has dined with the devil and sold her freedom to Miranda,
yet she very soon gives up the idea of quitting the job and turns this into a power game in
which she triumphs over Miranda after she attains a copy of the unpublished manuscript
of Harry Potter with Christian Thompson’s help in a very short time. Meeting Miranda’s
challenge, completing her quest, and winning the game against Miranda, Andy sticks to
the subjectivity Miranda has created for her. She gains an edge over Miranda by providing
the twins with the book before they leave for their grandma and getting an extra copy
ready for Miranda. Doing the impossible and achieving the Plan A must always be the
priority since she now knows very well that there is no Plan B with Miranda. Andy has now
fully assumed the subjectivity the devil figure has conjured up for her. Nate, whose
perspective operates as the critical eye that Andy lost to her devil boss, is a functional
character in reminding Andy of her old identity, her former self, and clothes before her
transformation when he emphasizes his love of her old clothes. The more Andy neglects
Nate, the more critical Nate grows to awaken Andy to her transformation. Though Andy
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states she is only in “better clothes” and “[she is] still the same person [she] was” (The
Devil Wears Prada), her lifestyle indicates that she is not the same Andy. Andy admits that
the demands of the job make her personal life “hang by a thread” (The Devil Wears
Prada). For Lily, likewise, Andy has turned into “a glamazon” (The Devil Wears Prada)
disregarding Nate and their friendship. Lily’s words wound Andy with their stress on her
transformation into a glamazon after sixteen years of friendship. Emily similarly tells her
that she has sold her soul the day she put on her first pair of Jimmy Choos” (The Devil
Wears Prada). In the scene Andy gives gifts to her friends, Nate criticizes Andy, indicating
that she is “drinking the kool-aid” (The Devil Wears Prada). Kool-aid was a popular sugary
American drink which has evolved into an idiom that means following and embracing a
fixed idea imprudently. Drinking the kool-aid denotes “a warning about ignoring personal
doubts about dangerous groupthink” (Feuerherd 2006) and its manipulations. Nigel also
voices this idea when he states that she has joined the club after she started to do well at
work (The Devil Wears Prada).

The process of appropriation is enhanced after Miranda pushes Andy to go to the

benefit gala night, causing her to miss Nate’s birthday party. In the benefit advertised as
Runway Celebrates the Age Fashion, Nigel articulates, “This benefit is the social event of
the season. It represents what Runway is about – grace, style, elegance […]” (The Devil
Wears Prada), confirming the impact of the image the fashion magazine creates in
consumers’ minds. Miranda’s appropriation intensifies when Andy is hailed by Christian
Thompson as well upon his call “hey, hey, the Miranda girl” (The Devil Wears Prada).
Thus, Christian Thompson also hails her to form a relationship with her, which he
succeeds due to Andy’s increased susceptibility to change in line with the alluring fashion
world. Miranda’s last push comes when she makes Andy decide between going to Paris
for the fashion week and staying there. Though Miranda tells Andy that this is her
decision, she in fact forces her to betray Emily for the Paris Fashion Week. Andy knows
that Emily has been starving herself for weeks for this event but accepts Miranda’s offer
as she believes in the Miranda’s power and the contribution this event would make to her
career. All of Miranda’s acts function to manipulate Andy into coming to Paris with her for
her career.

The Paris trip with Miranda gives her a chance to gain a critical perspective about
her boss and the prescriptive practices of the fashion industry. She comes to a point of
epiphany as she recognizes Miranda’s diabolical plan and deception of her friend, Nigel,
mercilessly like a devil. Right after Miranda’s appalling claim that Andy has betrayed Emily

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too by making a choice to move on and get ahead (The Devil Wears Prada), Andy realizes
that Miranda insidiously pushed her to make such an inadvertent yet inconsiderate
decision. Andy’s final decision to leave this post takes her back to her former self.
Rejecting Miranda’s fiendish statements “everybody wants to be us”, “I see a great deal of
myself in you” and “you can choose for yourself” (The Devil Wears Prada), Andy perceives
that she must decide between her former self and the new one as her life has drastically
changed and her relationship with Nate is going down the drain. She is conscious of the
fact that she has no choice but lose herself in the face of Miranda’s impositions and
superior position. Andy now observes it clearly that she has followed Miranda’s footsteps
at the expense of losing herself, her boyfriend, and friends. No matter how unconscious
and unintentional this decision may be, Andy decides not to continue as Miranda’s
assistant, for the system in which she was captivated and transformed is too harsh and
cruel for her to endure. Andy leaves Miranda in the streets of Paris, rejecting resolutely
any further exposure and interpellation to any potential conversions by throwing her
mobile phone to the pool. Though the devil has the best tunes so far, Andy changes not
herself but the tide of appropriation together with her body and clothes. After Nate
requests Andy only to “own up to” her change, and some integrity (The Devil Wears
Prada), Andy accepts after the Paris trip that she has turned her back to her friends in her
last talk with Nate. Now she comprehends much better why Nate says that she has
become one of the Runway girls (The Devil Wears Prada). Rejecting Miranda’s words and
statements that deceive her into believing that she is like Miranda, Andy comes to accept
her appropriation to whatever she is not when she is working for Miranda. Andy finally
dissociates herself from the impact Miranda has left on her body and identity by resigning
and giving all her fashionable clothes to Emily as she feels sure that she will not wear
them again. Though Miranda is depicted for the most part of the movie as a powerful
woman who has worked hard to attain her position, she is also presented as vulnerable
when she is on the verge of losing it after her divorce. She is characterized as a woman
who has sacrificed everything for power and has had a tough life moving up in the fashion
world. Although she does not like Andy’s resolution to leave her position as her assistant,
the way she smiles at Andy after getting in the car signifies her respect for and
acknowledgement of Andy’s decision.

The Devil Wears Prada overall enlightens the ways in which fashion plays a crucial
role in the articulation and formation of the human body and identity. The nature of fast
and conspicuous consumption in the movie destabilizes the body by constituting it as an

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interpellated entity. The movie critiques the restrictive practices of the fashion industry
and its impositions on the body as it is rendered a visual text where subjectivity and
power relations can be inscribed. The fashion industry as a powerful manipulative
mechanism alienates the subject from their identities by producing prosthetic and
inauthentic subjects and bodies. The movie exposes a critical stance when the camera
displays many times synthetic mannequins outside and inside shop windows. In particular,
the mannequins are shown carried across the street and in the dustbin, which proves the
endless circulation of clothes and fashion trends in a system of consumption, where
Miranda and Nigel act as mouthpieces for the fashion industry. Andy is exposed to the
devil’s ideology only to realize its flaws, deficiencies, and impairment to her body and
identity. The moment Andy quits the job and leaves Miranda, she regains both her true
self and subjectivity, and the control of her body together with her original clothes of her
own choice. Thus, The Devil Wears Prada presents how the fashion ideology structures
bodies and identities, presenting the relation between the fashion world as it crystallizes
this wider network of signs that create not only clothes fitting the bodies, but also bodies
fitting the clothes.

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