The first Devil Wears Prada worked because it treated fashion as a closed world that took itself far too seriously, and then invited audiences to laugh at it from the outside. The sequel, arriving two decades later, has inverted that formula entirely: now the fashion world is laughing along, elbowing its way into frame, practically begging for a cameo.

David Frankel's follow-up reunites Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Emily Blunt in what Disney is positioning as the prestige comedy event of the summer. But the real story isn't the returning cast—it's the parade of industry figures, celebrities, and influencers who apparently moved heaven and earth to appear alongside them.

The cameo arms race

According to reports, the film is stuffed with appearances from fashion icons, journalists, athletes, and the broader celebrity ecosystem that now orbits the industry. The specifics remain under embargo, but the sheer volume suggests a production that became, at some point, less about storytelling than about access management. When everyone wants in, the question becomes not who to include but who to disappoint.

This marks a significant shift from the original, which featured precisely zero fashion-world cameos because, frankly, the fashion world wasn't sure whether it was being celebrated or mocked. Anna Wintour famously attended the premiere with a sense of bemused tolerance. The industry's relationship with the film has since evolved from wariness to wholesale embrace—Runway magazine merch is now worn unironically at Fashion Week.

What changed in twenty years

The answer is everything. Fashion in 2006 was still a gatekept kingdom where editors wielded genuine power and designers showed collections to rooms of buyers, not Instagram followers. The industry Miranda Priestly terrorized no longer exists in the same form. Print is diminished. Influencers have seats at shows. The Met Gala is a content opportunity. The mystique that made Priestly frightening has been replaced by something more democratic and, inevitably, less interesting.

A sequel set in this landscape faces an impossible task: satirizing an industry that has already satirized itself into submission. The cameo-stuffed approach suggests the filmmakers chose a different path—celebration dressed as comedy, a victory lap for an ecosystem that won by surrendering its pretensions.

Our take

There's something melancholy about the fashion establishment queuing up to appear in a film that once made them squirm. It suggests an industry so hungry for relevance that it will embrace any reflection, even an unflattering one, as long as it confirms that people are still watching. The original Devil Wears Prada succeeded because it understood that fashion's power came from exclusivity. The sequel, by including everyone, may accidentally prove that the power is gone.