Elsewhere in the film, beyond the fictional fashion magazine’s offices, the sartorial spectrum widens. There’s Nate (Adrian Grenier), chef boyfriend to protagonist Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), who is cool but firmly of his time—which is to say, he’s no Carmy Berzatto in IYKYK tees and selvedge denim. Nate is pure mid-aughts casual: bootcut jeans, flannels, zip-up hoodies, and ringer T-shirts. There’s nothing particularly considered about it, and that’s the point. He embodies the everyman (albeit one handsome everyman) of the era, the guy for whom clothes are an afterthought. Nate is critical of his girlfriend’s foray, in her role as a reluctant Runway assistant, into the fashion world. He is also seemingly clueless about the sway that the industry has on its target audience: “Why do women need so many bags?” he quips, groaningly. “You have one. You put all your junk in it, and that’s it. You’re done.”
The film’s other romantic foil, the journalist Christian Thompson (Simon Baker), lands somewhere in between Nigel and Nate. His tailoring is relaxed—lots of soft blazers and rumpled button-ups—and he also accessorizes with a certain sophisticated affectation, namely the omnipresent skinny scarf. He is dressed like he is always about to drink a cappuccino and write in a tiny leather notebook. Then there’s Doug (Rich Sommer), Andy’s seemingly square friend who exists as a kind of stealth case study. He’s very corporate on the surface—dark suit, dark shirt, narrow tie—but with the faint styling of someone paying closer attention than he lets on. He does name-check John Galliano and Nicolas Ghesquière, after all.
What’s striking, looking back, is how transitional it all feels. Menswear hadn’t yet undergone its great leveling-up. The original film was released two years before J.Crew’s industry-shifting slim Ludlow suit, and back when Thom Browne was mostly a cult obsession rather than a global reference point. It was before Mary H.K. Choi’s Hairpin essay about “all dudes” learning how to dress, and before Guy Trebay wrote about “the rise of the well-dressed man” for T magazine. And it was certainly before menswear’s blogging era introduced cordovan wingtips and Neapolitan blazers to a new generation of style-inclined dudes. In 2006, men’s fashion still felt like a niche concern, and The Devil Wears Prada caught that moment perfectly, preserving it as a neat little time capsule—three-piece suits, skinny scarves, and all.