Runway Religion
The Gospel According to the Blue Sweater
When I saw the trailer for The Devil Wears Prada 2, I smiled.
Not because I’m expecting it to outdo the original (how could it?), but because The Devil Wears Prada never really left us. The story didn’t need a sequel. It just needed time. What began as a satire of the fashion world has turned out to be a mirror for our spiritual one.
If the first film was about the crushing weight of expectation, the sequel seems poised to ask what happens when you finally get what you were chasing, and it still doesn’t set you free.
We know something about that in the church.
“You Think This Has Nothing to Do With You?”
There’s a moment early in the original film when Andrea laughs off the absurdity of fashion. She calls the whole industry “stuff.” Just stuff. And Miranda Priestly—icy, terrifying, theological–delivers the monologue that changes everything:
It’s one of the most brilliant indictments ever filmed.
And not just of fashion. It is an indictment of us.
Miranda is right. The forces that shape us are not neutral. We are dressed by expectations, trends, and invisible powers long before we ever choose an outfit, cast a vote, or post a thought. What we think is “just stuff” — the career ladder, the curated Instagram feed, the family Christmas photo — is often the costume we wear to belong.
Call it what you will — branding, self-expression, success — Paul had another word for it: powers and principalities.
