A summer of fashionable spoilers, from 'Devil Wears Prada 2' to 'American Love Story'

For fashion lovers, movie spoilers aren't really about the plot. A leaked photo or paparazzi snapshot of an actor strutting in fiery red Jacquemus slingback heels or carrying a Coach handbag on set can speak volumes.

This summer, social media users were served a visual feast of photos and videos revealing costumes from the “The Devil Wears Prada 2” and “American Love Story” — and found them not necessarily to their taste. Both productions filmed in the busy streets of New York, and the widely shared footage sparked conversations around the proverbial watercooler about the creative direction of their beloved characters or real-life figures like Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.

They may have been polarizing, but the costume designs had everyone talking — and film industry experts say that was, perhaps, the point.

Brand analytics firm Launchmetrics reported that photos of designs from the brand Gabriela Hearst, including a colorful patchwork maxi dress pictured in the leaked photos of actor Anne Hathaway, generated more impact than the brand's recent fall/winter Paris fashion week show, after all.

Buying into the spoilers

Before social media, set photos of an actor in costume would often be staged and sent to news outlets to control the narrative and create buzz, said Sofia Sondervan-Bild, a film producer and adjunct film instructor at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. Now, the videos and photos that flood social media are often outside productions’ control. On Instagram and TikTok, users are dedicating accounts to the fashion in the set photos and creating posts discussing spoilers.

Newman Parker, 25, a fashion influencer and longtime fan of “The Devil Wears Prada,” started a TikTok series identifying all the bags featured in the photos and where to source them. Commenters on his posts have chimed in with helpful tips on some of the rarer vintage finds. For fans of the 2006 movie, the leaked photos of the sequel have only fueled their desire to see it.

“I really just hope that the garments are beautiful on screen and that there are some looks that we haven’t seen,” he said. “I’m hungry for something that hasn’t been spoiled.”

Parker said one of his favorite looks from the set photos shows Hathaway, who plays Andy Sachs, in the multicolored Gabriela Hearst maxi dress with a bucket hat. Some criticized the look online for being too trendy for Andy. (In the first movie, she's a journalist disinterested in fashion who transforms into a fashionista while working at the fictitious Runway magazine under Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly.)

For the sequel, Molly Rogers, who previously worked with the first movie's fashion designer Patricia Field, has taken on the costume design. Rogers’ bold design choices for the TV series “And Just Like That” caused quite the stir, much like the leaked set photos of “The Devil Wears Prada 2.” Rogers told The New York Post that she felt fans would get burned out by all the paparazzi shots before seeing the film. Surely, social media users were caught off guard by photos of Meryl Streep dressed in character, carrying a bedazzled pink water bottle it seemed Miranda Priestly would not be caught dead with.

“I’m willing to give some grace and some hope, but also, I would not be a true fan if I didn’t say, after the ‘And Just Like That’-ification of 'Sex and the City,' I’m a little nervous about what went wrong,” Parker said. “I think only time will tell.” 

Costume designers are tasked with creating an authentic closet for their characters, said Deborah Nadoolman Landis, founding director of UCLA's David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design. Landis, who has worked on the sets of “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Coming to America,” said leaked photos lack the context of the overall screenplay.

“When we see somebody on the street, we have no idea what the dramatic context is,” she said. “How long it’s going to be on screen, whether we’re just going to see the top, whether she is or they are sitting behind a desk.”

Capturing an icon

Unlike period dramas where niche experts can offer their criticism on the style of dress of centuries-old eras, the more recent past opens the door for a wider audience to weigh in sartorially.
First-look and paparazzi photos of Ryan Murphy's “American Love Story” led to an outcry on social media with their release. The forthcoming TV show explores the high-profile relationship between Bessette-Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr. before their death in a 1999 plane crash.

The it girl's effortlessly minimalist '90s style has endured, enamoring even younger generations of fashionistas. 

Ann Caruso, celebrity stylist and brand consultant, first met Bessette-Kennedy when they were both living in Boston. 

“If you look back at the minimalism of the '90s and what Carolyn was wearing, it was like this effortless chic and the monochromatic palettes, her perfectly cut slip dresses, the men’s shirts,” Caruso said. “It was all quiet luxury before the term existed now.” 

Friends who remembered Bessette-Kennedy and even fashion critics were quick to note their disappointment over the first-look photos of actor Sarah Pidgeon, calling out the size of the Hermès Birkin bag on her arm, the color of her hair and the style of coat she was pictured in. 
“I was actually really angry, and I just felt like she was she made such an impression on the world with her fashion,” Caruso said. “They seemed to really get JFK Jr. and to not get her along with him is just such a disappointment.” 

In defense of the costume design, Murphy spoke to Puck News — acknowledging that he had no idea that “people cared as much as they do.”

Jack Sehnert, a New York design executive, began running @carolynbessette, an Instagram account, dedicated to the style muse in 2015. Sehnert said that while “American Love Story” didn’t get the first-look photos right, he has since seen a change in more recent photos.

“I do think that we’re about to see a barrage of artistic license taken on who she was, how she dressed, because what’s kind of exciting is we’re moving into this new field where she is a Princess Diana, she is Jackie Kennedy, and she’s looked at as such,” he said.

Picture Courtesy: AP Photo/Stuart Ramson, File