Top 10 Details You Missed in The Devil Wears Prada

In one memorable scene from the movie, Miranda asks Andy to get “Demarchelier” on the phone. She, of course, is completely unfamiliar with famed photographer Patrick Demarchelier and Emily has to step in. Later though, we see Andy calling a “Patrick”, and at least one writer at the website Man Repeller has a theory on who it might be. Amelia Diamond pointed to Patrick Jane, the character from “The Mentalist” as a possible recipient of the call. He is played by Simon Baker, who just so happens to play Christian Thompson in “The Devil Wears Prada”. Convoluted? Perhaps. But maybe he used his skills of reading people to help Miranda out!

At the beginning of the movie, when Andy first arrives at Runway, we see the entire staff panic when they realize Miranda is about to arrive. Nigel tells everyone to “gird their loins” and questions who Andy is before asking aloud if anyone recently ate an onion bagel, scrunching up his nose at the apparently vile smell. In an earlier scene, we saw Andy grab a bagel on the way to her interview, but some eagle-eyed fans have noticed that the one she was handed didn’t look like onion but rather whole wheat! Not to mention: after she grabs her bagel, it seems to inconsistently appear and disappear several times while she’s on her way to the office.

Any movie that is about high fashion will inevitably look dated relatively quickly, considering how rapidly styles come and go. In many ways, “The Devil Wears Prada” holds up, but there are a few instances where a rewatch will reveal some pretty ridiculous sartorial moments. One takes place during the gala scene, where a sick Emily is struggling to remember a guest’s name in order to inform Miranda. In the background is a woman with a black dress that is embellished with teardrop style pearls dangling from her breast region. Was this ever in style?

Is it any surprise that Emily was hit by a car causing her serious injuries that prevented her from going to Paris? It seems that no one in this movie actually looks both ways before crossing the street. In the opening scene, we see a group of fashionable women getting ready for their days, and hailing cabs from seemingly the middle of the road. In the same scene, Andy runs right in front of a car on her way to the subway. Throughout the film, she does the same thing several times and it’s a wonder she doesn’t end up in the hospital like Emily!

In one scene, we see a photograph of a younger Andy with her parents. Anne Hathaway poses as the younger version of herself and David Marshall Grant, who plays her on screen father, is in the photo as well. But interestingly enough, rather than hiring an actress to pose as Andy’s mom, actress Anne Hathaway’s real mother appears in the photo! Kate McCauley Hathaway actually used to be an actress herself so we wonder why they used her for this shot only! Either way, it definitely adds a layer of authenticity to it all.

When Andy finally hits her stride and becomes a competent employee of Runway, we see her head to a photo shoot in Central Park that has an “urban jungle” theme, with models wearing masks and animal inspired outfits. There’s a brief moment where we see a yellow and white snake that looks a whole lot like the Burmese Python that Britney Spears famously performed with at the 2001 VMAs. There’s nothing to suggest it’s the same snake, but how many Burmese Python snake performers can there possibly be in the industry?

If you caught this one, you deserve an award. And you’ve probably seen “The Devil Wears Prada” too many times. In one scene, we see two women walking through a set of doors at Runway and despite the fact that the doors are clearly labeled “PUSH”, they manage to pull and they work anyway. Are these fancy doors ones that work both ways? If so, why would they say “PUSH” instead of nothing at all? If the set designers simply got the labels wrong, how could they not notice such an obvious mistake? We have so many questions!

This is a movie about the cutthroat high fashion industry, as you know. And in the film, we see many dazzling outfits, in both runway shows and on the employees of Runway magazine. After Andy undergoes a dramatic makeover partway through the story, she is just as stylish as the women we saw at the beginning of the movie, and fits in flawlessly in her workplace. And yet...when she wakes up in Paris she is wearing a toe ring. Can someone explain this to us? There is no way that toe rings were cool in 2006. Was this supposed to be a vestige of Andy’s old, deeply unfashionable persona? We’ll never know.

On the day of Miranda’s charity benefit, Emily is sick and is dismayed that she won’t be well for the event - though she won’t miss it for the world. Andy is asked to go along as well, and Emily trains her for her duties by having her memorize the names of many of the important attendees. Then at the event itself, Andy outperforms Emily, who seems to not be thinking straight because of her illness. Throughout all this though, Emily’s cold symptoms are totally inconsistent: for instance, she has a red nose in one scene but not another. This doesn’t really add up because it’s all supposed to take place over a short period of time.

Ok maybe things were just better in 2006, but how in the world are we supposed to believe the lives that Andy, her boyfriend Nate, and all their friends are living? Andy is supposed to be a recent college grad, and she’s getting a paid job at a magazine in her early 20s. Nate is perhaps a little bit older, but there is no way they can afford an apartment like that in Manhattan on entry level salaries. Not to mention: one of their friends was in charge of a high class gallery? Sorry, but even in the mid aughts there’s just no way any of this was realistic.