’90s Vogue Alumni Reveal Their Real Reaction to 'The Devil Wears Prada'

0:00Hi, I'm Chloe Mao, head of editorial content for American Vogue and host of The Run Through. The 2026 Met Gala is just around the corner, and if you're anything like me, you're probably already wondering how guests are going to interpret this year's red carpet dress code, Fashion is Art. Be the first to see every arrival by joining Vogue's Met Gala live stream on Monday, May 4th at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. Pacific, streaming live on Vogue.com and YouTube. Don't miss fashion's biggest night. See you on the red carpet.

0:34This is The Run Through. I'm Chloe Mal. I'm Nicole Phelps. And I'm Cio Manardi. And I'm here in NYC, which I love being in. I did get a text from Marc Berucci this morning, spotted on C1, Cio Manardi. Yeah, it's been lovely to be here. I like that you're our British queen coming to visit on the day that the real British queen is visiting the World Trade Center, so security getting into the building has been challenging. Oh, my God. I didn't understand. I'd forgotten that they were coming down here. I knew that they had a state visit. Well, I remember, and then I was reading the draft of the summer cover story and missed my stop and went to Rector instead.

1:12So then I had to walk. I had to go under. I felt like such a dodo. So you missed your breakfast and your stop. I know. This is not a good day for you. It's been a frenetic morning. It is, as you can hear, a busy week at Vogue. a bit of a manic week. We are in full Met Prep mode, T minus what? Six days? Five days? Five. Five days. And we had our second Vogue Book Club event earlier this week featuring The Devil Wears Prada. It was so fun. We screened the new movie and afterward I had a conversation for the podcast, which you will hear today, with Billy Norwich and Kate Young. Billy is an amazing author and former Vogue-er And Kate Young is a renowned celebrity stylist.

1:59And they were great. It was so much fun to hear them reminiscing about working at Vogue in the early aughts. And what I was most excited about was that we invited 33 former Anna assistants from the last 25 years. And two dozen came. And it was so much fun to see everyone from people who worked at Vogue 20 years ago to people who worked here two years ago. And it was a really funny reunion. It must have been nice to see them all catching on. And Devil Wears Prada 2 is out on Friday. And honestly, I can't believe this movie's not in theaters yet. I'm really feeling we've covered all our bases. I'm seeing it this weekend with some old Vogue crew.

2:35I'm very excited. So fun. We'll be eager to hear your feedback. Nicole, what were your takeaways from Billy and Kate's conversation? Well, I thought that the book was not all that insider. And I really like the insider story. So I was very appreciative to hear Billy and Kate and... And what they said really rang true, which is then and now you have to be a hard worker. Well, you know what I thought was an amazing takeaway was that I feel like a lot of people who write for the Internet now are like, back in the old days of journalism, you just had to write for print once a week. And now I have to write, you know, two blog posts a day.

3:13And Billy Norge reminded us that while he was working at Vogue, he was also a daily columnist for the Daily News writing 1 ,500 words a day. His side hustle was 1 ,500 words a day. Can you imagine? I would just be strung out. I know. I'm not that person. 1 ,200 words a day. For some people, it comes easy. It's just easy. It's just like a stream of consciousness. Hamish is like that. Hamish can write something brilliant in two hours. It's ridiculous. I remember his obit of the Queen, and it just was like a perfect. That's how I feel about the Valentino obit. And he didn't have any of his books to reference.

3:46And he just wrote it in two and a half hours. It was very impressive. But before we get into the Billy and Kate conversation, I want to talk about headlines of the week. What, Choma, tell us about your trip. Oh, it's been so fab so far. Happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you. I had a lovely weekend. And Nicole's birthday. A little bit earlier, yeah. I'm an Aries and Choma's a Taurus. You know it's a very big month for Aries, right? Yeah. actually Precious Lee texted me and she's absolutely like an astrology queen I have to respond to her we're both Decatur Georgia babies too oh are you I love her I love her but are you both cusp thingamabobs I've got seven planet in Aries so I always feel a lot of kinship with Aries and a lot of my favorite people in Aries so she told she thought she misremembered it because I was talking about that and she thought it was in Aries so she's telling me that this is a major moment in Aries Well, I hope I see her at the pre-Met party and hear all about the April.

4:47So, Chum, you've been here for a few days. I got very excited about the planets all of a sudden. I've been here a few days. I mean, you know, it's like New York life. There's so much happening. I'm looking forward to the Met preview. I'm looking forward to the pre-Met party. I mean, I thought we have to talk about the Chanel Resort show before we go any further. It looked amazing. It looked amazing. And I think the shoes or the lack of shoes. We're writing about that. We wrote about that. We had two writers go toe to toe on whether they're pro or con. I just don't have beautiful feet. So I will never be pro the naked foot.

5:25I think it looks so elegant with elegant feet. But you were only wearing those on a carpet. First of all, how remarkable this was. How amazing this was Metje's fifth show. since September. And, you know, just how prolific he is is really astounding. One of his funniest ideas this season, which is Cruz, are these sort of non-shoe shoes, to coin a Laya Garcia Furtado-ism, where they're basically just little metal, it looked like metal heels tied around the ankle. No toe, no vamp, no sole, really. and you know quite only a few little places in the world you could wear a shoe like that I want to see it at Cannes I want to see it at Cannes because it's the biggest rule breaking thing and it's the most elegant thing and obviously they weren't in Cannes but they were definitely nearby in Biarritz which is where the show was which is where Coco Chanel set up her couture house in 1915 Oh, my gosh.

6:35So it was a sort of going back to Chanel's beginnings moment. Okay. Yeah, I was wondering why Biarritz. Well, she also, she set up a shop in Deauville, I think, in 1913. And the couture house where she made couture clothes came a couple years later in Biarritz. And can you give us a bit of a, like, cruise refresher? I feel like every time I need to be reminded, like, what this season is. Cruise is this in-between season between fall and spring. And it was originally, they called it cruise because it was the clothes that the elite, the upper classes took on their cruises and other warm weather holidays.

7:16You know, when the Upper East Siders would head down to Palm Beach, say, for the winter to, you know, keep warm. And so they'd need their beachy kind of clothes. Nice. And now they pop up far flung around the world and it's sort of this, you know, climate catastrophizing. Right. It was actually Karl Lagerfeld who sort of got that started. I remember the first Chanel cruise show that was not in Paris. It was on the in Grand Central in one of those sort of what do you call that? Like a balcony, you know, right above the Great Hall. And it's going pretty far back. I will be dating myself if I say how long ago it was.

8:01That sounds like an epic location for a show. Yes. It was before 2010, so it was a long time ago. So cool. What were your favorite looks from the collection? What did you love about it? About this show? Yeah, about this show. Well, I thought what Sarah Mower said was really right. The way that Mathieu can sort of make something extraordinarily special, but also quite easy to wear, which is a really hard combination to get, but he's really getting it with their drop-way silhouettes, which is obviously a callback to Coco. I really like the very full skirts. They were almost like grassy beach skirts with the half-zip, the quarter-zip sweater.

8:41Yes, I love that. The evolution of the quarter-zip. Yes, I've been feeling a quarter-zip lately. Yes, and Mathieu himself wears them every day. And so does Bavita, who she was scouted, I think. Your cover girl. Yeah, exactly. British Vogue cover girl. Yeah, and on that note, I just loved the casting. I love that we're seeing who Mature's women are, this wonderful casting. You had that pregnant model, Kaya Wilkins. She's a musician, so she's not sort of a traditional model. And then he has a wonderful vintage store owner, Stephanie. What's her last name? Cavalli. Stephanie Cavalli. She has a store upstate.

9:15Yes. Yes. Who I'm obsessed with and I've been mistaken for in the Chanel store for, which is quite embarrassing. But I mean, how fab. She's like the most fab woman ever. And yeah, I just think we're getting a clearer idea of who his women are and his models are. And I love that. No, it feels like his world building is one step farther, which I really am excited about. Next up, Cruise Show is the next big one on my itinerary is Dior in L.A., which is on what, the 14th? There's a lot of L.A. shows, right? There's a few. And isn't something else coming to New York? Oh, well, so it's first it's Dior in L.A.

9:56on the 13th. Then that weekend, it's Gucci in New York on the 16th. Then the following week, it's Vuitton in New York, which is rare that all big brands like that are doing in New York. Very nice for us. I know. Jealous. And then a little bit later, Hermes. In early June. In early June, Hermes is showing in L.A. And so is Xenia, which will be a men's show. Okay. Do we have any hunch about where? I'm always sort of curious because I think both Nicolas Gasquier and Demner have very interesting choices for venues. Do we have any hunch? Where would be your dream place to see like an epic show in New York that hasn't been used?

10:34They're being very secretive about it. Where would we want it to be? Like where hasn't been used? Well, it's such a beautiful time of year. I think it would be cool to do something outside. I mean, we know that Nicolas loves architecture. Yeah. I'd love to see something at the Cloisters. I know it's far. Yeah. Has anything ever been done there? That's a good question. The Cloisters would be amazing. I also can see Nicola doing something at like the UN, although that would be such a nightmare that he wouldn't. But that's important. Or in the middle of Central Park or something crazy. The problem with Central Park is that you can't, there's very rarely permitting for tents.

11:06So it's a completely weather dependent. I wanted to get married in Central Park, so I looked into this. And it's just, it's very hard to take that risk. Ralph Lauren did it, and they just took the risk. but they didn't it was covered they did it in the oh so they must have they did it in the it was kind of an underpass wasn't it in Bethesda Fountain oh yeah so it was under the underpass yeah that was the rain plan it was beautiful actually yeah but no I mean exciting to see Vuitton Gucci's version of their New York City moment do you have any favorite show venues in New York where you've been like oh this venue I loved the Tommy Hilfiger fairy show oh yes that was so fun and so charming and cheeky and delightful.

11:48I also loved Anna insisting on knowing that the ferry was not moving. She was like, I don't want to be at sea. Trying to think. Stressful, but also super on brand. It was like Telfar did one at a kind of a helicopter. The helicopter pad. Wasn't it pouring rain too? It was great. I mean, but it was so on brand for Telfar. I'm actually excited to go to the store because I haven't been and I've heard it's a really interesting shopping experience. I think the same day that Telfar did that show at the Helipad, Rodarte did a show in the Marble Cemetery on 2nd Street, which is such a pretty spot. My friend Thessaly got married there and it was so pretty.

12:29Such a beautiful spot. Such a nice place. Sorry, I'm going off tangent. But just thinking. You really do love New York. I do! We're so happy you're here. There were major, I mean, to me, two resort shows that stick out to me as being probably a nightmare for PR or people organizing it was the Chanel show in Havana, which had a, I went to Havana a few years before that and it's very challenging. Oh my God, I wanted to go to that. I love Havana. Famously, that plane had very, very bad turbulence. People were freaked out on the plane down there. Yes. Ask anybody, they'll re-ail you. A lot of internet problems.

13:07But also, I thought the Giacomo's show at Casa Malparte was incredible and just such a cinematic, beautiful space. So yes, I do think these resort moments are, to me, marketing at its best for these brands. Big news of the week for me is, like, finally the mystery of the big rock on Zoe Kravitz's finger. She's hit. I mean, they're engaged. It's crazy. Eight months. How can we, what couple are they? When you know you know. Compare them to, like, who, I mean, I guess it's like her mom. like actress and rock star. I mean, she's kind of repeating history. It's sort of a Jerry Hall, Mick Jagger vibe.

13:48Yeah, Jerry Hall, Mick Jagger. But yes, there's a lot happening. I also love that she's, like has a collaboration with Jessica McCormack and then got a Jessica McCormack ring. I mean, that ring is unmissable. It's huge. It's really big. How many characters do you think it is? Do we know? She's also so small that the ring looks even bigger. She's a very delicate lady. But yeah, I'm really excited for them. I think Harry's such an emotional, sweet guy, and he needs someone who understands his world, and she gets it. You know, she grew up in that world, and she understands what it means to give an artist a space, but also to be supportive, and knows what it means to have a million eyes on you at all times.

14:32So I think they're just kind of the hottest couple ever. Well, maybe not ever, but they're the hottest couple. Okay, let's close out headlines on some Met Gala-related items. We've been doing so much fun lead-up content. I loved Hannah Jackson's story on Vogue Staffer's favorite pieces of clothing and art. I love Flaming June, but also any of the stripes in Vueyar paintings. And I also, obviously, the blue dress in the Comtesse de Saint-Ville, the Aing painting that's at the Frick, is one of my favorites. What about you guys? I chose The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. I had that, you know, massive poster above my bed in junior year in college.

15:12And it reminds me of that time. I love that. And for anyone who wants to be part of the Met Gala prep, come to the Vogue Cafe this weekend. It is popping up at Ultra Paradiso here in New York City in Soho. I hope there are nibbles because the food there is amazing. Oh, we have amazing food. Well, there's Ultra Paradiso food, but also we have amazing pastries from Honey's Bakery, which we're very excited about. And it's our first Vogue Cafe in New York. So we're very excited. Doors open to the public at 10 a.m. on Saturday and from 9 a.m. on Sunday and Monday. So drop in. Choma, you had such a fabulous one in London.

15:49Yeah, it was fun. But I love Altroparides. I'm very excited to see the New York one. And I think it's going to be so many people there. And Nicole, what are you doing? I'm doing a live taping of the podcast with Tory Burch on Saturday. And there will also be a screening of the documentary the first Monday in May, as well as additional other programming. The cafe is open to the public. Some of these events require registration, however. So check the app right now. Tap on your Vogue app. All right. Thank you guys for so much fun to have Choma in the studio, in the flesh. Now on to my conversation with Kate Young and Billy Norwich.

16:25The Run-Thru will be back in just a moment.

16:38Comprehensive. Witty. Speculative. Critical. Insightful. Profound. Wide-ranging. Hopefully doesn't take itself too, too seriously. I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, my colleagues and I try to make sense of what's happening in this chaotic world. I hope you'll join us for the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts. Thoughtful. Exquisite. Just, you know, real.

17:16All right. Hi, everybody. Thank you for staying. We appreciate it. I hope that you enjoyed The Devil Wears Prada, too. And as we've been reading the book and revisiting the first movie, there have been many conversations in our office about fact-checking, fact versus fiction of what the book and the movie were really like compared to what it was actually like in the early aughts. And none better to discuss that with us than Kate Young and Billy Norwich. Billy was a incredible writer and editor who worked at Vogue in the late 90s and in the early aughts. And I will say, many think he is a part inspiration for Nigel himself.

18:03So, Billy, please come.

18:11And Kate Young is an incredible stylist whose many beautiful dresses you have seen on red carpets the world over, and you don't even know it. Well, a lot of you do. And she worked in Anna's office in the time that Lauren Weisberger worked there, not that year, but around the time. Kate, thank you for being here.

18:35Can you both tell us what you're up to now, but also when you first started working at Vogue? I'm a celebrity stylist now, and I started writing, or I started working for Anna, right, kind of out of college, and I was in that office for one year. What year 97 we figured this out on text, but I think it was 97. Okay Billy what about you? Well in the 1980s, I was a very heavy drinker and I There was a restaurant and it was not the editor of vogue yet I was tipsy and when I was tipsy. I also thought I was at best bisexual so I I started flirting with Anna. Many years later, she became the editor of Vogue.

19:27This is such a better story than I thought it was going to be. I've never told you this story, have I? Exactly. And I think that, not to digress, but I think if you're a gay man and you think a woman's beautiful, it can be the highest form of friendship. So she became the editor of Vogue. I always wanted to work at Vogue. I had a cousin in the old days. You know, Vogue used to be twice a month. And she was an illustrator. She used to come visit. So I worked at Vogue but concurrent with that which was called the British model I had a newspaper job and from 1985 to 1991 I wrote something called the William Norwich column in the New York Daily News.

20:05This is analog days And then two years at the New York Post When my office in Vogue and I would close the door perhaps conflict of interest and write my column Twelve six days a week from Vogue. I'm sorry twelve hundred words six days a week That's why that's why when people say well, you're a tool for the internet, which they do when they launched Vogue.com Whatever more than a blogger. Yeah, and they invented the computer at some point when I was a Vogue Then I went and worked at the New York Times as the so-called style and entertaining editor and there was a the copy editor there used to, every time my name appeared as the entertaining editor, he would send the late Amy Spindler, who was my boss, asking how entertaining is Billy Norwich?

20:55And then I went back to Vogue after Amy died and was there until 2012. And then for the last 10 years, I've been an editor of fashion and interior design at Fiden Press. That's what I do.

21:12Hey, what did you wear to your interview with Anna? I had used all my graduation money to buy a Tom Ford Gucci first collection blue satin blouse. Wow. So I wore that. Do you still have it? No. So you're wearing blue? Totally. And Patrick Cox shoes, which nobody remembers anymore, but they were really great. Okay. What was the hardest thing about starting in Anna's office? Well, I actually got hired by Paul Wilmot. He was the PR director at Vogue. And he left Vogue the day I started. And I spent a month in his office with nothing to do while he was setting up a whole new business. And there was like file cabinets of all the press on Vogue and Anna from like the last 15 years.

22:03So I read them. Wow. So I like knew everything. I read every article on Anna. I read every article on everybody who was at the magazine. So I was kind of waiting for him to leave because Anna had already hired me. But I like kind of had this dead zone where I was in the office every day and I just kind of like watch what was going on. So I was really like ready to go. You were proud. Unlike Andy Sachs. Yeah. And I loved fashion. So like I was psyched about it all. Wow. I want to know before we get into more about what it was like way back when. Yeah. What did you guys think of the movie? When I saw the first movie, I went, I think I told you this, but we went with Anna.

22:48And we didn't know what to expect. Tell the group. So we went in 2006 to a screening. It wasn't a premiere. It was a screening. And I went with Anna. And I was delighted to be asked to. Was it the one at the Paris? At the Paris. I was also there. You were there behind us. Now you're ahead of us. And when it was over, Anna was very intent on not being drawn into the publicity. So she didn't want to have her picture taken with Meryl Streep. But she wanted to wear Prada. Which is her humor. Intense humor. Intense humor. And I'm wearing a Prada suit from when I could afford a Prada suit. And the seat the backside is so thin and this might be the last time I get to work, but never mind So when the movie was over and a lean forward, she looked down and said, are you okay?

23:41Because I had no idea in the book It's a very tall man that we all assumed was Andre However, when I went and read the book you made me read this book the again, I I realized it was that man is white. The character is Caucasian. So I figure in the movie, and I was shocked, that they thought, well, we can't really caricature Andre, but let's get the little Jew. And so they got the little Jew. And I hated his ring in the first movie. Oh, wow. And I hated the ring. And so I said to Anna, I hate his ring. I would never wear it. I know. Goodbye. And off she ran and didn't have a picture taken. Now, how good a fashionista am I?

24:32That ring, I thought before tonight, I should Google the ring. Everybody and their brother wants the ring. There are copies and copies and copies of that ring. Absolutely. Devogue should make a Stanley Tucci ring. I think we're okay, but yeah. You're okay, yeah. Wow. Kate, you started in Nana's office and you lasted a year. And then where did you go? Fashion market. I had a lot of jobs. So I was a fashion market assistant. When I started working at Vogue, Anna asked in the interview, what do you really want to do? Because everybody knows that's a temporary position. Like, you know, there are 20 of us here because you only do it for a few years and then you do something else.

25:17So I wanted to be Dorothy Parker. And I told her that in the interview. And then there was like a caption writer job came up and they sent me home with like a spread and said, write the captions. And I was like, oh, I don't want to do this. I want to be down, you know, like where Grace had all the racks and they were like packing for Harbor Island. I was like, I want to be there. So I told Anna that. And then the market director needed an assistant and I didn't want to work there at all. All those girls sat in a pen and just got yelled at by the fashion editors who were stealing the clothes all day long.

25:58And Anna said, well, if you want to be a stylist, you have to be a market. You need to do that. That's foundational. So I went and did that for a long time. And were you there when the Devil Wears Prada came out? I think I was Tawny's assistant. I mean, we've talked about this a lot. I mean, you went to see it. I read the galleys. I never read the book. I never saw the movie. I saw the movie eight days ago. It's sort of spreading around the office that there's this galley. How do you get it? Lisa Love got it and sent it to us in like inner office mail because it couldn't come like. And then we'd like smoke on the like loading dock where you could smoke at four times square and like read it to each other.