Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway try Prada on for size.
By Brandon Voss
According to Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep doesn’t remember the first time they met. The younger ingénue, however, recalls the moment vividly. “It was right after she had won the Golden Globe for Adaptation, and I was introduced to her at the afterparty,” Hathaway says. “I went on for something like five minutes about how much I loved her and how much she meant to me, and at the end of it she just put her hand on the side of my face and said, ‘You’re so pretty.’”
To be fair, this initial meeting was before Hathaway’s pivotal role in Brokeback Mountain elevated her from Disney movie princess to bona fide actress. The pair now stars in The Devil Wears Prada (based on the best-selling novel by Lauren Weisberger, former assistant to Vogue icon Anna Wintour), in which Hathaway plays Andy Sachs, an ambitious yet awkward young writer who must spice up her style to fit in as an assistant to Miranda Priestly, Streep’s icy fashion editrix. Hathaway had already gone from geek to chic in The Princess Diaries, but Prada costume designer Patricia Field still needed her to lose 10 pounds to fit into the film’s haute couture wardrobe, which included designs by the likes of Chanel, Fendi, Bill Blass, Galliano, Valentino, Fred Leighton, and Donna Karan.
“I don’t follow fashion or understand the trends,” Streep admits, “but I’m sort of a notorious pain the butt for any costume designer because I have so many opinions.” While she has never worn Field’s own line (“I used to walk by her store when it was on Eighth Street and be scared when I looked in the window!”), Streep praises Field’s achievements on Prada with such a low budget: “It’s like they made a movie about aerospace and they decided to make it in a garage in Paramus — they didn’t save any money to build the airplane, which is a central thing.”
For the most part, Field relied on her close relationships with high-end fashion houses, who lent the production its more expensive pieces. “One of the handbags was $12,000 — it’s almost inconceivable,” Streep shares. “So then a $4,000 bag seems like a bargain!” But the Oscar winner jokes that playing dress-up can sometimes be a drag. “I had 60-some costumes, and each one had to be coordinated with the shoes, the belt, the earrings, the jackets — and everything perfectly tailored. It was really laborious for me.”
Though the majority of the wardrobe was ultimately auctioned off for charity at Streep’s behest, Hathaway did covet some choice items. “I really wanted to keep the Chanel boots that went up to my imaginary parts,” she says. “I’m not a brand person for everything, but the one fashion label that I love is Chanel. I will look at a dress and say, ‘Wow, I really don’t like that.’ Then I’ll find out it’s Chanel, and I’ll be like, ‘You know… it’s kinda cute.’”
HX, July 2006.