Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Seeing Cerulean

I am fairly certain that anyone reading this blog has seen The Devil Wears Prada. It's one of my all time faves and every time I come across it on FX, I always have to stop and watch. The other day when I stumbled upon it, I was so impressed with one of Miranda Priestly's famous speeches. Andy, played by Anne Hathaway, walks in while Miranda is adjusting the belt on a model and asks Andy for her input. Andy, hopeless and naive, says that "this stuff all looks the same." That's when Miranda launches in. 

This... 
stuff? Oh... okay. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out — oh, I don't know — that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. You're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002 Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St. Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? (I think we need a jacket here). And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. Then it filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of stuff.

I think the reason this speech is so impressive is because of how true it really is. We come across so much and consume so much on a daily basis and the way that this information gets to us is really quite interesting. We get to experience such fun fashion and see so many beautiful clothes, but stop and think what it takes for it to get in front of us. It's a really interesting process from idea to design to production and just thinking about it a little more can help open up your world in ways you never thought possible. Plus, author Lauren Weisberger has a new book coming out. If only it's half as good as The Devil Wears Prada. 



(photo: courtesy of The Devil Wears Prada)

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