The Tamesis
Then came the centerpiece of the evening: the advance screening The Devil Wears Prada 2——Strictly no spoilers, please prepare yourself for next week’s release. When the end credits rolled, the guests sat in their seats for a live recorded post-screening conversation. Fashionof penetrate Podcasts, two in particular are favorites Fashion Alumni: William aka Billy Norwich, a long-time writer and editor who now covers fashion and interiors at Phaidon Press; and celebrity stylist Kate Young — once an assistant to Anna Wintour and now the force behind the red carpet wardrobes of Dakota Johnson, Scarlett Johansson and Rose Byrne. The conversation proved to be almost as interesting as the movie itself.
Asked what she thought of the film’s portrayal of her past life, Young reassessed Andy Sacks with the rigor of a prosecutor, declaring: “She was a terrible assistant. She should have been fired.” Then adding that Andy’s boyfriend was “the worst,” to cheers. She admitted that she even enjoyed the drudgery described in the book. “I love that she leaves dry cleaning and coats on my desk,” she said. “I opened the closet, unzipped it, and thought – wow, that’s cool. I’ve never seen fashion before.” Watching the film in 2006 made her so disturbed that she “called my therapist” and wondered, “Am I a masochist?! I love this job.”
Her memory of the first time the book arrived at the office is more vivid: Lisa Love delivered the kitchen via interoffice mail, and assistants secretly brought them to Fourth Square (at the time) Fashion HQ) loading dock, read aloud between cigarettes. “That’s horrible,” Young laughed as he recognized the satire. “She’s making fun of us.” But she seemed to suggest that what’s worth making fun of is also what makes the place exciting. “Everyone works so hard. Everyone is so smart… they can talk about shoes all day long,” she said, and for the first time she thought, “I’m not a weirdo. I love these people.”
Meanwhile, Norwich resurrected one of their own Fashion Legendary Great Artifact: He once devised the legendary hundred-question literacy test to weed out aspiring assistants who, as he put it, “had never read a book.” Fashion”. As he explains, he and Charles Gandee constructed the exam based on a hundred characters who formed the FashionThe “constant role” – “If they wrote a book, if they coughed, if they made a dress, they would be covered Fashion“.Recently resurrected new york times The quiz went viral again and was almost a secret handshake for many viewers.
Marler then discovered an old piece of career advice from Kate, who once said that aspiring stylists should “max out your credit cards and start smoking.” When asked if it still worked, Yang laughed and said maybe not.
Maybe not. But it was a fitting final note to an evening reliving the legends told about work, style and ambition.
