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All of the ways Nate from The Devil Wears Prada was THE WORST BOYFRIEND EVER.

And here I was thinking that the only lesson in iconic fashion flick The Devil Wears Prada was the trickle down phenomenon of cerulean blue from haute couture to the racks of Bloomingdale’s.

Wrong.

Underneath the thigh-high boots and Chanel frocks was a hidden message: don’t let a possessive and patronising boyfriend drag you down. Wake up, people – The Devil Wears Prada isn’t about fashion, it’s about sh*t boyfriends.

Let’s start at the top.

Like all good mid-2000’s chick flicks worth their weight in sparkly lip gloss, The Devil Wears Prada was essentially one long makeover montage. Our protagonist is the frumpy, lumpy, dumpy Andy. Andy is a #SeriousWriter, and somehow lands a spot at top fashion magazine, Runway. During her time at Runway, she becomes hot; thus transforming herself into a #HotSeriousWriter.

(From what we can tell, this process mostly involved the removal of several chunky knit jumpers, addition of sparkly lipgloss, and the use of a GHD hair straightener. Textbook movie-montage-makeover.)

Herein we meet Andy’s boyfriend, Nate.

Nate is a chef, and is very focused on his career. Nate is just your average down-to-earth nice dude who is actually very good at disguising the fact he hates most things.

For example, Nate hates:

  • People who take a challenging job for the sake of their long term career plan
  • People who enjoy fashion
  • People who make sacrifices for their very important and career building job
  • People who don’t turn his birthday into an all-day circus event
  • People who are late to dinner
  • People who don’t want to eat his grilled cheese sandwich for dinner even though that’s not really a very impressive dinner for a professional chef
  • And yet, we all kinda feel bad for poor ol’ Nate. Nate appears to be getting the pointy end of the stick at several moments in the film, such as when Andy is like, ten minutes late to some dinner. Or, when she missed his birthday party to attend a work event.

And sure, at the time of first watching The Devil Wears Prada, we all felt a little tug at the heartstrings as we recognised the battle between ‘old Andy’ and ‘new Andy’. We’ve all been there. Especially after a particularly good haircut.

But hang on a hot second - I think we may have missed something here.

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Andy wasn’t getting carried away on a high-fashion horse to the cool crew - *cough* Simon Baker’s character of Christian Thompson *cough* - she was just doin’ her damn job. Like every other enterprising 20-something in New York City, Andy was just flogging herself to try and get ahead. And Nate was not helping.

Oh, and while I’m at it? Andy’s friends were low-key jerks, too. Life was dandy whilst they were being gifted with Marc Jacobs handbags and cool event invites - but as soon as Andy needed to start prioritising her work over her social life? THE WORM DID TURN.

Relationship troubles? You need Osher Gunsberg's love advice.

Down To Earth Nate was happy with the version of Down To Earth Andy. But as soon as she begun to grow and develop and break free of her lumpy dumpy frumpy shell, he wasn’t buying it. People change, Nate. People go through movie-montage-makeovers that would have cost literally hundreds of thousands of dollars based on that new season designer wardrobe.

Ok, maybe that’s not true, but people DO get new haircuts and change their steeze.

If life has caught you on an upward swing like our girl Andy, the very last thing you should be worried about is the deadweight of those who refuse to accept the ‘new you’.

Make like Andy, and keep your eye on the prize, girls. She might have ditched the thigh-high boots for a pair of blue jeans in the end, but we’re sure happy she managed to hang onto that new confidence.

Now, who has watched Clueless lately?