Someone watches a film, falls for a character’s silhouette, and by the time the credits roll they are already rearranging their closet in their head. This year, that instinct has attached itself almost entirely to what is releasing right now. Wuthering Heights, Devil Wears Prada 2 and Elle, the Legally Blonde prequel, have all landed within months of each other, and each one has pulled a different wardrobe out of the audience.

Sister Says

Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, with Margot Robbie as Cathy and costumes by Jacqueline Durran, turned into a cultural moment before it even hit theatres. Durran built close to fifty looks for Robbie’s character alone, working with a palette of blood red, black and ivory. Robbie carried that same energy into her press tour in archival Vivienne Westwood corsets and custom Schiaparelli, and the line between costume and street style basically disappeared. Corsets and structured bodices are everywhere now, but not as costume pieces. People are cinching a corset top over a plain white shirt or a turtleneck, pairing it with barrel jeans or heavy boots.

Devil Wears Prada 2 arrived twenty years after the original reshaped how a generation thought about office dressing. With Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci all returning, the wardrobe pressure on this sequel was enormous, and it has brought power dressing back into conversation. Structured coats, pencil skirts and confident accessorising are back, the whole put-together, editor-at-a-glance way of dressing that the film built its wardrobe around. 

Then there is Elle, Prime Video’s Legally Blonde prequel starring Lexi Minetree, which sends a teenage Elle Woods from sunny LA to grey Seattle in 1995. The costume team leaned hard into 90s prep and grunge, pink tweed sets and velvet headbands on one side, plaid flannel and band tees on the other, with Elle’s own wardrobe staying glossy and Y2K even as the world around her turns grunge. It has already spun off a Shopbop capsule collection built around the pink, monochrome, girly aesthetic, and it is doing for 90s prep what the corsets are doing for period drama.

TL:DR

Three films released within months of each other are influencing wardrobes right now. Wuthering Heights brought corsets and structured bodices into everyday rotation, Devil Wears Prada 2 revived power dressing, and Elle is pulling 90s prep and grunge back into the mix through Elle Woods’s pre-Harvard years. The common thread is contrast, structured or nostalgic pieces worn with something undone and casual.

Sister Shops: 

Ralph Lauren – Buckle-Trim Ponte Pencil Midi Skirt

Mac Duggal – Pink Boucle Short Sleeve Mini Dress

Outcasts – Riviera Lace Corset Top