Five networking lessons from The Devil Wears Prada.
Spoilers ahead! If you haven’t watched The Devil Wears Prada 2 (and you plan to), save this article for later.
Strip away Dior, Dolce, Armani, Brunello, Milan, or the billionaires, and The Devil Wears Prada is really about one thing: People reaching out to people. Every scene that moves the story turns on a relationship. Here are five things it got right.
Here is the thing nobody saw coming: Miranda does not even remember who Andy is. Or so she says. Emily immediately reverts to the dismissive version of herself from 20 years ago. Two decades of silence, and the connections that were never that deep just stayed shallow.
Then Nigel walks in and calls her "Number 6" like she never left. And it later emerges he had been quietly engineering her return all along. That is the difference. Mark Granovetter's landmark 1973 research on social networks made this point with data: weak ties are valuable bridges to new opportunities, but they need reactivation. Strong ties do not. They are already on.
2. Make it about them, not you
There is a scene at Miranda's Hamptons party that is easy to miss if you are watching for the drama. Miranda introduces Andy to the room and suddenly doors that would never have opened on a cold approach are wide open. But what Andy does with that access is the real lesson.
She arrives prepared. She knows who is in that room, what they care about, what they have built. Every conversation she walks into, she leads with them, not herself. That is not charm. That is craft.
A warm introduction buys you thirty seconds of goodwill. What you do with it determines whether it becomes a relationship or a forgettable exchange at a party. The introduction gets you in the room. Knowing the person in front of you is what keeps you there.
Andy needs to get to Sasha Barnes. Reclusive. Does not press. The path runs through an art dealer, a pet groomer, and 18 voicemails that do not get answered until the 18th one does.
Stanley Milgram called this the six degrees of separation back in 1967: every person on earth is reachable through a chain of six acquaintances or fewer. The people you are trying to reach are already in your extended network, a few introductions away. Covve's Connection Compass helps you understand exactly how you move through those layers, if you want to give it a try.
4. Trust comes before reliance
Go back to the first film for a moment. Andy is not supposed to be at the benefit. She is only there because Emily is sick. When a guest approaches and Emily freezes, Andy whispers the name just in time. Miranda notices.
That is where the trust starts. Not in a grand gesture, but in a quiet, consistent proof of reliability. Over time, Miranda stops leaning on Emily and starts leaning on Andy. The relationship becomes real because Andy earned it, one small moment at a time. Consistency is the mechanism most people overlook in networking.
The give-and-take that defines a lasting professional relationship does not arrive in one big moment. It accumulates quietly, long before anyone needs anything. Show up the same way every time. That is what turns a contact into someone people count on.
Benji Barnes gives a big dinner speech about disruption. Empires fall. Change is inevitable. He is not wrong, really.
But look at what actually moves the story. Nigel recommended Andy. Andy gets to Sasha through her network. Miranda trusts Andy enough to fight back. Every single plot point is a human connection being activated. The technology changes, the ownership changes, the industry changes. The mechanism stays exactly the same.
Build those relationships before you need them. Keep your Nigels close. And when your Hail Mary moment comes, know who to call.
Mark S. Granovetter (1973), The Strength of Weak Ties, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78 No. 6.
Stanley Milgram (1967), The Small World Problem, Psychology Today, Vol. 2 No. 1.