With paparazzi shots leaking behind the scenes looks of upcoming TV shows and movies, it begs the question …
The message is clear: if you don’t wish to have a blow by blow of the latest show spoiled for you, nearly a year in advance, then don’t go on your phone.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 is the latest movie to be given such treatment. Pap images of production in midtown Manhattan have flooded newsfeeds, leading to premature reactions awash with buzz. From Anne Hathaway in a Gabriela Hearst chequered maxi dress and Meryl Streep sleek in Jacquemus to a sighting of a besuited Stanley Tucci, as each day goes by it becomes apparent that we’re getting a walk-through of the sequel’s key costuming (or at least a facet of it, anyway).
The question remains: why wait for the release a year down the line when we essentially get the highlights reel in real time? That is, if we even go to the cinema to watch it at all … our attention spans are so noodled that we’ll likely fill in the dots with clips online rather than focusing on an actual motion picture.
Arguably, we know that this is the way the media machine works. It’s essential for marketing to tease what’s coming and drum up interest. By this stage, we’re actually primed for it. In fact, we feel a sort of entitlement to this BTS content as an integral part of a brand’s lifecycle.
But the backlash to the recent release of test photos of Sarah Pidgeon, who’s playing Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy in the upcoming instalment of American Love Story produced by Ryan Murphy, shows that the tide is turning. Indeed, the high volume of distaste over how the show’s costume designers interpreted Bessette-Kennedy’s look – the cheap hair! The Converse! The clothes that were meant to be Calvin, but looked like Shein – showed how fickle the teaser image can be. Indeed, Murphy was forced to quell the nerves of Carolyn die-hards with a statement made against the ‘inflammatory’ feedback. (Fun fact: Bessette-Kennedy did actually wear Converse, she just tended to be photographed more in Prada knee-high boots and Manolo Blahniks; proving, unsurprisingly, that the wrath of the internet isn’t always warranted, or factually correct.)
Similarly, by the time Sarah Jessica Parker flounced around her Gramercy Park apartment in And Just Like That (RIP) in a tulle sculpted scoop neck dress with stuffed roses by Simone Rocha, the effect was little more than an eyebrow raise of acknowledgement rather than a sharp intake of breath as we’d already seen the look umpteen times on social media. In fact, AJLTO‘s dedicated account for its costumes shows designers Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago taking followers into fittings and delving into the stories behind the outfit choices. It’s interesting, if a little deflating because by the time it airs you’re already bored of the looks, so often have they been reposted or referenced in the zeitgeist. It seems to layer a fast fashion effect to often very non-high street clothes, rendering them old news.
All of this aside, perhaps there’s just one part of us that cries out, can nothing be a surprise anymore? What about keeping some things as just that: a novelty, an unexpected bolt from the blue, or at least a dress that isn’t omnipresent on your explore page. Too much to ask? Maybe that’s just the way that fashion works these days. If so, I can admit defeat, but I still question how it can sustain at this pace.
