The most hated shoes from The Devil Wears Prada 2 trailer officially return

It would be an understatement to say that I was disappointed when I saw the trailer for the long-awaited The Devil Wears Prada 2 last month. A film that once served as a window into the fashion world, offering a prestigious view of how the industry operates, is now getting a sequel that opens with… red Valentino Rockstud studded pumps from 2010? Really? It must be because Patricia Field is no longer the stylist, I thought, but after seeing Valentino’s latest pre-fall 2025 collection, I realized that maybe it was not all such a coincidence after all.

Namely, at the end of last week, Valentino’s new creative director Alessandro Michele gave us reason to believe that the character of Miranda Priestly will, after all, retain her sense of the pulse of the times. After taking the helm of the Italian fashion house, the designer is officially bringing Rockstud heels back in his pre-fall 2026 collection. “I didn’t want to do it immediately upon arriving, because it felt strange and I didn’t know the terrain well enough,” Michele said. “My idea is to define what Valentino is, what I do, and what I can retain from what my predecessors did.”

Related: Shoes in The Devil Wears Prada 2 that might comfort you if you are upset about the Valentino Rockstud heels

When former co-creative directors Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli first introduced Rockstud for the fall/winter 2010 season, the shoes sold out at lightning speed and the company’s revenue doubled. However, Michele, who has just unveiled a new, more modern and sexier version of the Rockstud model, featuring a metal toe cap, an ankle strap, a sharper silhouette set on an extremely thin heel, claims that the entire connection with The Devil Wears Prada 2 is pure coincidence. “I had been working on this for a long time, and when the trailer for the film appeared and Miranda was wearing those shoes… I jumped out of my chair!” he said.

“The funniest part is that the pair she wears was not even among the bestsellers. There are iconic Rockstud models that everyone recognizes, but that pair?” He reportedly even refused a request to remove his new shoes from the lookbook. “That was absolutely out of the question. I made them for a reason, and they are staying there. Honestly, it is hilarious that someone, somewhere, in some parallel universe, had the same idea at the exact same moment. Truly bizarre. In any case, they are here now. And this moment is mine,” he added. The film’s premiere is scheduled for early May 2026, after which the pre-fall 2026 collection is expected to arrive in stores.

Is it possible that all of this is a coincidence? That the film’s new stylist Molly Rodgers and Alessandro Michele did not have each other’s moves in mind? Even if we were to believe that this is not just a well-orchestrated campaign ahead of the premiere, there is no room for complaints on either side: this could in fact save them both from individually made poor fashion decisions and bring them the recognition they are seeking. I said what I said.