O diabo veste prada

I stood in the lobby of the Elias-Clark building. Beautiful women and men went in and out of the lifts. They had perfect hair and perfect bodies, and wore fabulous clothes. This world was new to me and I knew nothing about it.
I come from small town in Connecticut. I studied English at Brown University, in Providence. At Brown we wore jeans and jumpers. We went walking in the country and wrote about English books and plays. We never thought about fashion.
I was just back from travelling for three months in Europe and Asia with my boyfriend, Alex. I was sleeping on the floor of my best friend Lily’s flat. And I was looking for a job. I wanted to be amagazine writer. I really wanted to work for The New Yorker. So I wrote letters to all the New York magazine publishers and asked for a job – any job. I had one answer – from Elias-Clark. They published lots of magazines – from serious to film to fashion.
‘It’s difficult to get into magazines right after university,’ said Sharon. Sharon was the girl who met me in the lobby at Elias-Clark. “There are very few jobs ... and the pay isn’t great! We have one fantastic job right now, but it’s going to go fast.’
We sat down.
‘Do you know who the editor of Runway magazine is, Andres?’
I didn’t.
‘Her name is Miranda Priestly,’ she said quietly. ‘She is the most important woman in fashion ... in the world! Emily is her first assistant. And we are looking for someone to be her second assistant!’
So here I was. In a lift in the Elias-Clark building, heading for Runway magazine on the seventeenth floor. I looked down at my cheap suit and my flat shoes.
Emily met me. She looked fabulous but she didn’t smile.
‘It’s hard job,’ she said. ‘Some days you have to work fourteen hours. And there is no editorial work – no writing. As Miranda’s second assistant, your jobis to look after her. You help her to live her life and do her job. It’s great. Just great. You spend every day with this fantastic woman. A million girls out there