If 'The Devil Wears Prada 2' uses the cat eye as shorthand for female ambition, does that mean it’ll be “canceled” by Gen Z? Not exactly, says writer Faran Krentcil.
Despite a L’Oréal sponsorship this time around, there isn’t much makeup chatter in The Devil Wears Prada 2, either—though Hathaway’s near-identical face at 43 is an aesthetic triumph.
Still, one beauty element consistently fuels the film’s subtext: a classic graphic cat eye, first rendered in black and then tinted blue, brown, and, finally, inevitably, glitter. Meow. Andy’s 20-year frenemy Emily Charlton is seen with the familiar flick throughout the movie; it becomes as much a character signature as her clipped insults to lovers and rivals alike.
Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly has a new first assistant, Amari , who also wears the style, albeit slightly smudged—as if she’s been rubbing her eyes from exhaustion while manning her Runway desk. Then there’s Andy herself, who begins wearing a more subtle version of Emily’s cat eye as she gains power in the office, eventually opting for a sparkly blue iteration to match her sparkly blue Rabanne dress and sparkly René Caovilla heels as she heads to a pivotal work event.
The film's makeup department head, Nicki Ledermann, deploys the cat eye at a fraught moment for this liner look. Last month in The New York Times, journalist Jessica Roy wondered if the cat eye was glaringly dated, citing a popular TikTok in which a 29-year-old gets roasted for the look by her college-age sister. Of course, it’s easier to dismiss things as “over” than to admit they’re more complicated.
That’s why skinny jeans are dunzo—in the age of Ozempic, there’s less need to create the illusion of an “ideal” body when you can needle it into submission. Ditto big feelings like heartbreak and yearning, both of which have been rebranded as “millennial cringe” online, even as our culture grapples with very real issues of romantic loneliness, family estrangement, and chosen community at what can feel like the end of the world.
If we consider the cat eye in the context of this cultural anxiety—the kind that makes us throw up our hands and say, “it’s over,” instead of “wait, something’s happening”—then Ledermann’s approach feels sharp. She uses the graphic flick to underscore the film’s most ambitious women within a franchise that’s fundamentally about how far you’ll go to succeed—and whether you, as a woman, have the “right” to enjoy it when you do.
In The Devil Wears Prada 2, the cat eye becomes a kind of girlboss signifier, which tracks when you look at the history of a great liquid wing. It began as a symbol of Egyptian royalty, as embodied by Queen Nefertiti and Cleopatra. Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn wielded their femininity very differently, but both used black liquid liner to conquer Hollywood. On Shark Tank, Lori Greiner wears a cat eye while debating million-dollar startup valuations; on Gossip Girl, the achievement-obsessed Blair Waldorf schemes her way to Columbia with a similar flick. And of course, there’s Taylor Swift, one of the only songwriters ever to reach billionaire status, according to Forbes.
Just this week, the 36-year-old appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in her signature black cat eye—a look she’s worn on nearly every album cover since 2006. Within this context, of course Emily is wearing black liquid liner for most of The Devil Wears Prada 2.
She wants to win—badly—and she wears her ambition as boldly as a Vivienne Westwood dress that nobody else can have. Her mini-me, Amari, is gunning for a promotion, too, with a classic wing. Andy and her assistant, Jin Chao , play within those lines as well. In fact, the only woman who doesn’t wear the look is Miranda Priestly herself, because she doesn’t need to fight for power—she already has it.
If The Devil Wears Prada 2 uses the cat eye as shorthand for female ambition, does that mean it’ll be “canceled” by Gen Z? Not exactly.
This weekend on Saturday Night Live, 23-year-old Olivia Rodrigo opened the show in a demure but defined black cat eye. Kylie Jenner, 26, recently sat courtside at a Knicks game in a more dramatic take, pairing her Kyliner eyeliner with smoky brown shadow. And in a show of pure dominance, basketball phenom Angel Reese, 23, wears a cat eye while playing in the WNBA.
So sure, maybe the devil—or worse, the hardcore earnest millennial —wears liquid liner. But she seems to be doing just fine. Maybe everyone else should take note, or at least a YouTube tutorial, and give it a try.
Read more from the beauty news desk: Entrepreneur Emma Grede Saw Nothing Extraordinary in Ami Colé Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy Is Not Your Unwitting Brand Ambassador At Coachella, Karol G Refused to Contain Latinidad—Or Her Womanhood What’s With All the Hunks Trying to Sell Me Beauty Products? Now, get an inside look at Yerin Ha's Bridgerton beauty transformation:
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