So why has Priestly chosen to descend from her ivory tower at Elias Clarke Publications’s Manhattan HQ and rejoin fashion’s front line? Priestly famously stepped back from public engagements within the fashion industry following 2006’s warts-and-all documentary exposé, The Devil Wears Prada, of which Vogue’s film critic wrote: “it’s so ridiculously fabulous, over the top and impossible to believe that you’d think it was a movie—it’s certainly nothing like real life at Vogue.”
As Priestly emerged to take her place on the front row, speculation immediately began swirling through the Dolce & Gabbana’s Metropole venue. Hidden behind her trademark dark glasses and ice-queen blonde crop, the chic fashionista—dressed in a leopard-belt tan trench coat, black cigarette pants, and sharp-toed golden pumps—gave little away as she strode to her seat. Kipling and their unknown but similarly sharply dressed colleague followed in Priestly’s slipstream as other guests digested the full splendor of her arrival. Alongside Kipling, the editor-in-chief sat next to Naomi Campbell.
After the show, the team from Runway were ushered backstage to discuss upcoming cover stories with Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana. Afterwards, Gabbana said: “Priestly is an icon. It is an honor that she chose to return to the front rows at our show today. She’s amazing.”
One wild rumor doing the rounds at today’s show was that this star guest was, in fact, Meryl Streep, masquerading as the real Priestly. Vogue has reached out to Runway for comment. In the meantime, we salute the return of Miranda Priestly to the scene: because the truth is, nobody can do what she does.