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Twenty years after its debut, The Devil Wears Prada is about to hit the theatres again. The Devil Wears Prada 2 release date is set for April 29, 2026, in Italy and May 1st in the United States. The timing is no coincidence: just days later, on May 4th, the Met Gala takes place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The most anticipated night in fashion – where art, clothing, and showbiz converge under one roof. The film and the event mirror each other, and together they invite us to ask: where does fashion end and art begin?
The Devil Wears Prada 2 plot: a changing fashion industry and the fall of print media
According to early reports, the plot unfolds at a pivotal moment for the publishing world: its slow but inexorable decline. Runway is hanging by a thread, but at its helm, there is still Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). The film will be a story about who leads when the rules of the game have changed. David Frankel returns behind the camera, and Aline Brosh McKenna once again pens the screenplay.
Cast: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway and the return of the original stars
The original cast reunites in The Devil Wears Prada 2: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci bring Miranda, Andy, Emily, and Nigel back to life. Time spares no one, not even Miranda Priestly. Twenty years on, the editor-in-chief of Runway finds herself navigating an industry she no longer recognises: print is fading, budgets are shifting, and power is changing hands. Those hands now belong to Emily Charlton, once her assistant, today an executive at a luxury group that Runway cannot afford to ignore. The film tells this reversal: the one who once served now sets the terms.
Andy Sachs returns to Runway, though this time not as an assistant. Power, in Miranda Priestly’s world, has changed address.
The cast expands. Kenneth Branagh plays Miranda’s new husband. Among the new faces are Simone Ashley, Lucy Liu, Justin Theroux, B.J. Novak, and Pauline Chalamet. On the Milan set, amid the streets of Brera, Lady Gaga also appears. The pop star filmed a scene near the Pinacoteca di Brera during a Runway fashion show.
In the first film, Miranda ordered her assistants to call Donatella to borrow her private jet. Twenty years later, Donatella Versace was spotted on the Milan set – a cameo as herself, not yet confirmed. But the echo of that line still resonates, and the coincidence is too perfect to be accidental.
Anna Wintour and Vogue: the real woman behind Miranda Priestly
“Runway: it’s not just a magazine. It’s a global icon…”
Nigel‘s words (played by Stanley Tucci) convey just how deeply this fictional story touches the realities of the fashion industry. The fictional magazine featured in The Devil Wears Prada 2 is modelled on Vogue, and the character of Miranda Priestly draws clear inspiration from Anna Wintour. The novel itself owes its existence to her. Lauren Weisberger was her assistant, and from that experience, she drew the book that began everything.
Born in London in 1949, Wintour took the helm of American Vogue in 1988 and transformed the magazine, which many considered in decline, into a global cultural empire. Her bob, dark glasses, and unmistakable style all became symbols of absolute power. In 2017, Queen Elizabeth II appointed her Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 2025, after 37 years, she stepped down as editor of American Vogue, handing the reins to Chloé Malle – a transition that seems tailor-made to mirror the sequel’s plot. Reality and fiction draw close: both tell of a fashion world in full transformation.
The most emblematic moment of the film’s promotion did not happen on a red carpet. During Milan Fashion Week in September 2025, Meryl Streep appeared at the Dolce & Gabbana show in character as Miranda Priestly — nude-tone trench coat, pearl-grey bob, white glasses. Seated directly across from her: Anna Wintour. Images of their encounter circled the globe. Fiction and reality had met.
The collision between reality and fiction erupted on the stage of the 2026 Oscars. Anne Hathaway and Anna Wintour took the stage together to present the award for Best Costume Design. Wintour greeted Hathaway with a crisp “Thank you, Emily” – the name Miranda uses for all her assistants.
The Met Gala and Anna Wintour: how she turned it into a global fashion event
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the largest museum in the United States. Five thousand years of human history find their home on Fifth Avenue, steps from Central Park. Founded in 1870, it today houses over two million works across nineteen departments: from ancient Egypt to contemporary art, from classical Greece to fashion.
The bond between Wintour and the Met Gala is a story of vision. Since 1995, she has co-chaired the evening, transforming it from a fundraising event into one of the most anticipated cultural occasions in the world. Concrete recognition came in 2014, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art renamed the wing housing the Costume Institute collection the Anna Wintour Costume Center.
The Met Gala takes place every year on the first Monday of May and opens the Costume Institute’s spring exhibition – the museum’s department dedicated to fashion as a cultural subject. The 2026 exhibition, titled Costume Art, presents nearly 400 objects: garments and works of art placed side by side to demonstrate that the dressed body has always been at the centre of art history.
The Met Gala 2026 arrives just days after the film. This year’s dress code is emblematic: Fashion is Art. A title that, in reality, affirms something the great couturiers had already understood long ago.
The Met Gala 2026: a red carpet that becomes a living museum
At the Met Gala 2026, the Fashion is Art dress code transforms guests into moving artistic installations along the entrance to the Metropolitan. Expect bold volumes and visions that bring the canvas to the skin. While co-chairs Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, and Venus Williams, alongside Anna Wintour, play host, the echo of The Devil Wears Prada 2 seems to watch every detail.
If fashion is art, then Miranda Priestly has the final word. “Everyone wants this life”, said the queen of Runway. In 2026, that dream will step out of the paintings and onto the runway under the lights.
