From ZARA to PRADA
I’m standing next to a rack of Prada, wearing more than $10,000 worth of Tiffany & Co. jewellery, when I feel a panic attack coming on. In my visions of transforming my wardrobe, I didn’t factor in an emotional meltdown. But here we are.
Fifteen years ago, a woman underwent a similar transformation, though I’m not sure hers involved as many tears. In The Devil Wears Prada, a film that defined an era of aspiration, small-town girl Andrea Sachs takes a job at Runway magazine, where she is introduced to the world of fashion by a begrudging editor’s assistant, Emily, then ushered in by a creative director named Nigel, who takes her under his wing and completely overhauls her look with “a little Crisco and some fishing wire”. It was the ultimate movie makeover that delighted and inspired countless young women who were dreaming of leaving behind their awkward schoolgirl pasts and becoming new, sophisticated versions of themselves.
Like Andy, I’m a journalist and recently got a job at a monthly magazine. But unlike Andy, I’ve always had an “interest fashion”. I grew up with my bedroom walls decorated by collages of images from fashion magazines and dyed my hair pink after
