Ahead of the release of The Devil Wears Prada 2, Meryl Streep will appear on the cover of Vogue magazine alongside Anna Wintour, with Streep reprising her Oscar-nominated role as fashion magazine boss Miranda Priestly. During the conversation, moderated by Greta Gerwig, Wintour brought up Melania Trump, prompting Streep to call out the first lady.
“I think the most…powerful message that our current first lady sent was the words on her coat that said, ‘I really don’t care, what about you?'” Ms. Streep said of Melania Trump’s controversial outfit in June 2018, “when she went to see imprisoned immigrant children.” “While clothing is all about expressing ourselves, we are also influenced by larger historical and political expectations.”
President Trump later tried to explain the coat, telling ABC that it was “some kind of message, yes,” but added, “I wasn’t wearing the jacket for the kids, I was obviously wearing it to get on and off the plane. It was for the public and the left-wing media that are criticizing me. I want to show them that I don’t care. You can criticize whatever you want to say, but it’s not going to stop me from doing what I think is right.”
Streep moved from President Trump to talk about women’s fashion in general, saying, “I’m stunned that women in power have to appear on TV with bare arms while men cover up with shirts and ties or suits. Women have a built-in sense of apology. Women have to show how small they are. It’s a price to pay. The progress women have made in the late 20th century and early this century has been destabilizing. It’s as if women have to say, “I’m too small to walk in these shoes. I’m not scared.”
The Devil Wears Prada 2 follows Miranda Priestly as she navigates the turmoil of modern news media as print magazines have to keep up with the times. Then the magazine’s new features editor appears, who happens to be Priestley’s former assistant (Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs).
“I was interested in the business side of things, the weight of a lot of people’s work, running a big organization and somehow keeping it running,” Streep said. “With this piece, I thought, ‘Okay, where are they going to go?'” I wondered what they were going to do now that everything is falling apart, these organizations are weakening or exploding in ways that no one knows what’s going on in the world right now. And I think they’ve found the truth about this business now.
Visit Vogue magazine’s website to read Wintour and Streep’s cover in full. “The Devil Wears Prada 2” will be released nationwide on May 1st.
