The devil might wear Prada, but she does not eat pasta

The devil might wear Prada, but she definitely does not eat pasta. At least, that seems to be the takeaway from a new interview with Emily Blunt. Speaking to Porter, the British actress who played Emily in The Devil Wears Prada spoke about reprising her role in the highly anticipated sequel, which also stars her brother-in-law, Stanley Tucci.

“He’s not good for your Devil Wears Prada diet though, because he’s cooking pasta and making me drink martinis with him every night,” she teased. “He was like, ‘Em, do you want some pomodoro pasta?’ I’m like, ‘I do, but I have to be in Dior couture today, so we’ll see’.”

Blunt might’ve been joking. But her words speak a sadder, more serious truth about the state of an industry’s perennial obsession with thinness, one that has not dissipated at all since the original film came out in 2006. In fact, I think it’s only become more prevalent.

Consider the parallels between Blunt’s words and those of her character in the first film, who tells protagonist Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathaway) that she’s trying to slim down for Paris Fashion Week. “I’m on this new diet,” she says. “Well, I don’t eat anything, and when I feel like I’m about to faint, I eat a cube of cheese. I’m just one stomach flu away from my goal weight.”

That quote — funny, absurd, and firmly established in the pop culture canon for all time — might seem like a throwaway line designed to poke fun at fashion. We can laugh because it’s hyperbole; surely nobody would ever actually do such a diet, or try to make themselves unwell to lose weight. Well, as someone who has covered London Fashion Week for around eight years and has several friends in the industry, I can tell you quite confidently that they would. Because this is how people in this industry speak and behave.

Anne Hathaway

I’ve been to fashion shows that have been delayed because models have fainted backstage. I’ve sat on front rows and overheard editors giddily exchange starvation tactics under the guise of diets, or more recently, wellness culture. And I know first-hand that despite years of body positivity campaigns, relentless virtue signalling, and half-hearted calls for diversity, almost every runway I’ve ever sat alongside has been mostly populated by very thin women.

In the original film, Andy is supposed to be the “normal” woman compared to Emily in terms of her detachment from diet culture; she’s just like us! A woman of the people! Someone who is not a sample size! Of course, her trajectory for a second film becomes complicated, perhaps strained, when you consider she’s played by a Hollywood actress, one who reinforces society’s increasingly limited beauty standards just as much as anyone else. It doesn’t help, of course, that in recent months, Hathaway has been subjected to countless rumours around what procedures she might and might not have had.

Countless plus-size models who were once inundated with work have spoken about their dwindling demand: “The past two years have been really challenging,” said Skye Standley in an interview with The Guardian. “I think there’s been a lot of erasure all around. I’ve noticed a lot less work.”

Meanwhile, according to data compiled by Felicity Hayward’s “Include The Curve” report, the number of plus-size women being cast in shows continues to dwindle from season to season. In February, Hayward found that just 22 out of 4,860 models were plus-size on the runway at Paris Fashion Week, marking a 47 per cent reduction from the previous season. Meanwhile, her report claimed that the February shows in New York and London featured 50 per cent and 68 per cent fewer plus-size models, respectively.

All of this is desperately bleak.