The Devil Wears Prada 2: Director David Frankel on Filming Milan Fashion Week and Meryl Streep’s Final Shot
Interview with Edith Bowman
The catalyst for The Devil Wears Prada 2 was a moment most viewers will remember. Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt reunited on stage at the SAG Awards a few years ago, traded Prada references, and the chemistry between them set the wheels turning.
Director David Frankel, returning to the world he first brought to the screen in 2006, sat down with Edith Bowman to talk about how the sequel finally clicked into place, why New York remains his favourite city to shoot in, the very different reception they got from the fashion world this time, and the last shot of the entire production. He also picked the scene he would happily live inside.
‘we went to Meryl, and she got the idea immediately’
How The Devil Wears Prada 2 finally got made
For years, a sequel had been a conversation that ran into the same wall: there was no story that justified one. The SAG moment changed the temperature, and writer Aline Brosh McKenna delivered the angle that finally made it feel inevitable.
“We saw Annie and Meryl and Emily do an appearance at the SAG Awards a few years ago, and the magic of their chemistry, making Prada references, just inspired conversation amongst us. Like, wouldn’t it be great. But we’d always resisted the idea because we never had a story that made sense. And then Aline Brosh McKenna, the screenwriter, said, well, this world that these characters inhabit has changed so dramatically over the last 20 years, and that creates all kinds of new challenges for them and opportunities for new drama and new comedy.”
Frankel and Brosh McKenna took the pitch to Streep, and that meeting closed the deal.
“We went to Meryl, and she got the idea immediately. We could revisit these characters, find out where they are today, and also address some themes that are really relevant in the culture today.”
A film with something to say about the magazine industry
The Devil Wears Prada 2 lands the comedy fans came for, but the seriousness of the world it depicts has shifted. Magazines have folded, business models have collapsed, and journalists carry more roles on their backs than they used to. Frankel was clear that this was not background dressing.
“You would know as well as I how challenging it is for journalists today, and all the different hats journalists have to wear just to make a living, and how many publications have ceased to exist in the 20 years since we made the first movie. It’s kind of tragic.”
That pressure is woven into the storyline. The film does not lecture, but it does refuse to pretend that the Runway of 2006 still exists in 2026.
‘I love shooting in New York, it’s my favourite place to shoot’
Shooting in New York: hundreds of fans and a return to familiar locations
Frankel has shot in many cities, but New York is the one he describes as his favourite. The Devil Wears Prada 2 leans into that affection.
“I love shooting in New York, it’s my favourite place to shoot. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and you always feel like you’re on the most crowded film set in the world, just walking down the sidewalk. There’s great energy. Plus we had hundreds of fans watching us shoot while we were making the movie.”
Two locations from the original film return. Bubby’s, the Tribeca restaurant from the first movie, makes another appearance, and Miranda Priestly’s townhouse is back too. Both function as Easter eggs for fans, but Frankel was equally interested in showing how the city itself has changed in two decades.
“There are a few places we revisit. Bubby’s Restaurant, and then Miranda’s townhouse. So that’ll be familiar to people who know the first movie. And then a lot of gorgeous new New York locations. The city has changed so much in the 20 years.”
One of the biggest New York set pieces is the gala which Frankel built with production designer Jess Gonchor (who also designed the original film).
The gala scene shoots at the American Museum of Natural History, the same venue used for a gala in the 2006 film, and Gonchor seeded the new version with knowing nods to the old one.
“We had just a spectacular production designer, the same designer who did the first movie, Jess Gonchor. He had a great vision for the Natural History Museum, where we did shoot in the first movie. They had a gala there. This time there’s a cerulean blue carpet, just little winks to the first movie, but an added level of glamour.”
Cerulean, of course, is the colour of one of the most quoted monologues in the original film.
And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin.
Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, 2006
Milan, Lake Como and lucky weather
The 2006 film took its production to Paris. The sequel travels to Milan, with a detour to Lake Como that almost did not happen. Producer Wendy Fineman is the reason it did.
“That’s the joy of filmmaking. You get to visit new places and live there for a while, and get to know a whole new family of people that you collaborate with. We visited Milan multiple times scouting, and the city really welcomed us. Our producer, Wendy Fineman, said, well, if you’re that close to Lake Como, you’ve got to go up there. Found an excuse to set a few scenes there. And we just got super lucky with the weather. It’s a pretty glamorous spot.”
Como gives the film its most romantic stretch, including the wooden boat sequence that writer Aline Brosh McKenna has called the film’s “little James Bond moment”.
Anna Wintour, Vogue and fashion’s open arms
The most striking shift between the first film and the sequel, in Frankel’s telling, is the welcome the production received from the industry it portrays. In 2006 the fashion world was wary, partly because no one wanted to risk their relationship with the editor of Vogue. In 2026 the doors opened.
“I think we were really welcomed in a more inviting way by the fashion world this time. We were a little movie. Nobody really knew what we were up to, and it was complicated by the fact that no one wanted to offend Anna Wintour when we were making the first movie. So people were really reluctant to help us out or participate in any way. This time things were completely different. Anna Wintour came to visit us on the set, and she put Miranda Priestly on the cover of Vogue. We got all the cooperation we could ever ask for from the fashion brands and everybody related to fashion. It was a very different filmmaking experience.”
A Vogue cover for a fictional editor is a piece of cultural endorsement that the first film could never have dreamed of. It is also a measure of how far the original has travelled in the years since.
Lady Gaga and shooting a real fashion show
The most ambitious set piece in The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a fashion show that climaxes the film, with Lady Gaga at its centre. Costume designer Molly Rogers carried the build, working through fashion house archives, casting models and choreographing the runway. Frankel describes the assembly as something close to controlled chaos.
“It’s one of those things that all happened very, very quickly. We knew Gaga was coming, but putting together the fashion show, Molly Rogers, our costume designer, went for weeks searching through the archives of different fashion houses, and casting the models, and then figuring out choreography for the runway and choreography for Gaga, and coordinating the music and the cameras flying around. That’s the joy of filmmaking. To launch yourself into the deep end and figure something out you’ve never done before.”
The result, on screen, has the feel of a real Milan Fashion Week show. Frankel and his team manage to be both the fly on the wall and the people running the room.
The Galleria scene: Miranda Priestly alone
Edith picked out one of the most quietly devastating moments in The Devil Wears Prada 2: Miranda Priestly walking through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, on her own. It is a scene that sits deep in her interior life, and it carries extra weight because of when it was filmed.
“You’re pointing out a couple of my favourite moments in the movie. The scene in the gallery with Miranda was literally the last shot we made of the entire shoot.”
The Galleria is not somewhere a film crew can easily empty out. The version of it captured in the film required a leap of imagination and an unusual amount of discipline on the day.
“When you visit the Galleria, there’s always about 5,000 people there. It was a huge leap of imagination to say, oh, she’ll be here alone in her heels, looking on the marble, and it will be really evocative. And here are all these brands. It’s this woman who’s been responsible for so much of the success of all of this fashion for years and years and years. And is she prepared to walk away from that. Fascinating question to us.”
‘The scene in the gallery with Miranda was literally the last shot we made of the entire shoot’
The film’s most intimate scene
The second moment Edith flagged is the polar opposite in scale: a quiet hotel suite, three of the biggest movie stars in the world in close conversation. It is the kind of scene that depends on writing, on trust, and on a director willing to step back.
“The scene you referenced in the hotel room is just amazing to me. There are three huge movie stars, and yet it’s really intimate and really dramatic.”
The film moves across enormous canvases, the gala, the runway, the Galleria, but rests on small ones. This scene holds it together.
Be In The Scene with David Frankel
Edith closed by handing the question back to him. If he could step into any moment from either film, which one would it be? Frankel did not hesitate.
“I would probably like to be hanging out in the garden in Lake Como, on a nice sunny day, not too much breeze, and the boat idling on the shore there.”
No wonder after two films, hundreds of fans on Manhattan sidewalks, a runway show built from scratch in Milan, and a final shot delivered inside one of the most photographed buildings in Italy, the director David would happily stop and relax by the lake.
