It might, of course, turn out to be a masterpiece. Yet there has been something intangibly depressing about The Devil Wears Prada 2 ever since it was first announced. Somehow, the timing of the film and its subject matter have combined in such a way that you can’t help but feel bummed out to the point of exhaustion just to think of it.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 is, of course, a theatrically released movie about glossy magazines, released at a time when nobody goes to see theatrically released movies or buys glossy magazines. And just to really sell the point that the film exists in a vacuum of unrealistic nostalgia, it has just announced a brand partnership with Starbucks.
As of yesterday, Starbucks customers are able to order from a secret menu of drinks inspired by characters from The Devil Wears Prada. These run the gamut from Miranda’s Signature Order (“a no foam, extra shot, extra hot caffe latte with non-fat milk,”) to Andy’s Cappuccino (“an oatmilk cappuccino with caramel and cinnamon: simple, elevated, and ready to walk the line between who she was and who she’s becoming.”) There are others, but I won’t bore you with those because I’m fairly certain you don’t often visit Starbucks voluntarily any more.
A time before Brexit and Trump … Anne Hathaway and Stanley Tucci in The Devil Wears Prada, 2006. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy
Because, in a franchise full of outdated throwbacks, the Starbucks tie-in has to be the most awkward. Yes, the film industry is so unstable that nobody is able to predict which films will flop any more. Yes, the magazine industry is in the toilet, thanks to the internet and the collapse in the advertising market and the sense that glossy magazines might have been slightly too pleased with themselves in the glory days. But trying to convince people that there is anything even remotely aspirational about Starbucks in the year of our lord 2026? That’s a step too far.
Again, you might be able to frame this as a cute throwback to 20 years ago, back when Starbucks carried some prestige. To drink a Starbucks coffee meant that you not only cared about the quality of your product, but you liked to immerse yourself in an elevated third space. And Starbucks knew it. For a while it published its own magazine. It started selling CDs with such success that it launched its own record label, releasing albums by Ray Charles and Paul McCartney.
Which seems incredible today, given the speed at which Starbucks overexpanded and cheapened itself. Somewhere along the way, Starbucks tried to turn itself into McDonald’s and failed. Coffee lovers avoid it, because the whole operation now feels like a front for the syrup industry. Hungry people avoid it because they don’t want to subject their mouths to the screaming agony of a nuclear-heated panini. And everyone else avoids it because, at least anecdotally, there is approximately a one in four chance that you’ll encounter the words “Toilets not working” on a scrap of A4 inside a transparent punched pocket sellotaped to a door.
There’s a TikTok doing the rounds that illustrates this perfectly. It cuts between a Starbucks customer in the 1990s saying things like “It’s not just a cup of java, it’s a lifestyle,” and his harried 2026 counterpart yelping “There’s poop. There’s poop everywhere in here.”
Going up? Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada 2. Photograph: BFA/Alamy
And this is where The Devil Wears Prada 2 wants to align itself. On the surface it might seem like a huge error – it’s a product of a dying industry about a dead industry, partnering with a company that feels like it has gone from being a destination to a last resort – but I wonder if something smarter isn’t going on here.
Perhaps The Devil Wears Prada 2 isn’t so much a film as an elaborate piece of mid-noughties nostalgia cosplay. Perhaps there is a huge market for people who desperately wish that it was 20 years ago, back when financial growth seemed assured and stability felt like the norm. A time before Brexit and Trump, when you could sit down in a comfy armchair and order a grande latte while leafing through an inch-thick copy of Vogue, before heading out to a packed screening of a mid-budget romcom in a cinema that didn’t carry the vague smell of disinfected vomit.
Obviously it’s easy to get nostalgic about the past. Maybe 20 years from now, when we’re all covered in dirt and hiding from the robots who gained sentience and went berserk, we’ll look back on the partnership between Starbucks and The Devil Wears Prada 2 as a golden age of human-led decision making. Still, would it have killed The Devil Wears Prada 2 to move with the times a little and announced a tie-in with Greggs?