’90s Vogue Alumni Reveal Their Real Reaction to 'The Devil Wears Prada'

The 2026 Met Gallow is just around the corner, and if you're anything like me, you're probably already wondering how guests are going to interpret this year's Red Carpet Dress Code fashion is art. Be the first to see every arrival by joining Vogue's Met Gallow live stream on Monday, May 4 at 6pm Eastern, 3pm Pacific, streaming live on Vogue.com and YouTube. Don't miss Fashions Biggest Night. See you on the Red Carpet. (music)

This is The Run Through. I'm Chloe Mal. I'm Nicole Phelps, and I'm Chamanati, and I'm here in NYC, which I love being in. (laughter) I did get a text from Mark Roochie this morning, spotted on C1 Chamanati. (laughter) Yeah, it's been lovely to be here.

I like such a chore of our British Queen coming to visit on the day that the real British Queen is visiting the World Trade Center. So, security getting into the building has been challenging. Oh my god, I didn't understand. I'd forgotten that they were coming down here.

“I remember, and then I was reading the draft of the summer cover story and missed my stop and went director instead.”

So, then I had to log that to go under, I felt like such a dodo. So, you've missed your breakfast annual store. I know it's my good day to be here. It's been a frenetic morning. (laughter)

It is, as you can hear, a busy week in Vogue, a bit of a manic week. We are in full Met Prep mode, T-minus, what? Six days, five days, five days, five days, and we had our second Vogue book club event earlier this week.

A featuring that I've always brought up.

It was so fun. We screen the new movie, and afterward I had a conversation for the podcast, which you will hear today, with Billy Norwich and Kate Young, Billy is an amazing author and former Vogueer. And Kate Young is a renounce celebrity stylist, and they were great. It was so much fun to hear them reminiscing about working at Vogue in the early Outs.

And what I was so excited about was that we invited 33 former Anna assistants from the last 25 years, and two dozen came. And it was so much fun to see everyone from Vogue, worked at Vogue 20 years ago, to be Vogue, worked to your two years ago, and it was a really funny reunion. I must have been nice to see the more catch-in-home.

And Devore's proud of two is out on Friday. And honestly, I can't believe this movie is not in theaters yet. I'm really feeling we've covered all our bases. I'm seeing it this weekend with some old Vogue crew. I'm very excited.

So it's fun. We'll be eager to hear your feedback. Nicole, what were your takeaways from Billy and Kate's conversation? Well, I thought that the book was not all that insider, and I really liked the insider story. So I was very appreciative to hear Billy and Kate, and what they said really rang true,

“which is then and now you have to be a hard worker.”

Well, it was an amazing take away.

I feel like a lot of people were right for the internet now, or like, back in the old days of journalism, you just had to write for print once a week, and now I have to write, you know, two blog posts a day, and Billy North reminded us that, wow, he was working at Vogue. He was also a daily colonist for the daily news, writing 1500 words a day. His sidecastle was 1500 words a day.

I would just be strong out. I know. I know. 1200 words a day. For some people.

Because it's just an easy, it's just like a stream of consciousness. Painting is just like that. Yeah, he can write something brilliant in two hours. It's ridiculous. I remember him, his obit of the queen, and it just was like a puff.

That's why I feel about the Valentino, but he didn't have any of his books to reference. And he just wrote it in two and a half hours. It was very impressive. But before we get into the Billy and Kate conversation, I want to talk about headlines of the week.

What trauma tells about your trip? Oh, it's been so far. Happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you.

And of course for a day. A little bit earlier. Yeah. I'm a cherries, and trauma's the story. You know, it's a very big month for areas, right?

Yeah. Actually, preciously texting me, and she's absolutely like an astrology queen. I have to listen. Are you a co-dicator, Georgia Babies, too? Oh, I love her.

I love her. I love her. Are you both cusp thing in my bobs? I've got seven planet in areas.

So I always feel a lot of kinship with areas and a lot of my favorite people in areas.

“So she told, she thought, she didn't even remember it because I was talking about that,”

and she thought it was an area. So she's telling me that this is major moment in areas. Well, I hope I see her at the pre-map party in the area with that. Yeah. I hope you're all about the April.

So, Tommy, you've been interested in me, I've got very excited about the planets all of a sudden. I've been here a few days. I mean, you know, it's like New York Life. I'm looking forward to the met preview, I'm looking forward to the pre-map party.

Is that what's so amazing? It looked amazing.

“And I think the shoes, or the lack of shoes, we're writing about that.”

We were close. We wrote about that. Right. We had two writers go toe-to- toe. Oh, my goodness.

I'm like good there. Pro or con. Oh, what did he get for it? I just don't have beautiful feet.

So I would never be pro the negative.

I think it looked so elegant with elegant feet. But you were only wearing-- Of course, I want to look at it. Yeah. First of all, how are we going to talk about this way?

How amazing. That is fifth show since September. And just how prolific he is is really astounding. One of his funniest ideas this season, which is Cruz, are these sort of non-shu shoes to coin a Lyagarsia

for Tatoism, where they're basically just little metal. It looked like metal heels tied around the ankle. No, no toe, no vamp, no soul, really. And quite only a few little places in the world you could wear a shoe like that.

I want to say it can. Don't you? That would be perfect. I want to see it. It's the biggest rule-breaking thing.

Yes, it's the most elegant thing. And obviously, they weren't in can, but they were definitely nearby. It'd be a rich way to show us, which is where Coco Chanel set up her tour house in 1915.

Oh, my gosh.

“So is that sort of going back to Chanel's beginnings moment?”

OK. Yeah, I was wondering why beer reds. Well, she also-- she set up a shop in Doville, I think, in 1913. And the Couture House, where she made Couture clothes, came a couple years later in beer reds.

And can you give us a bit of a cruise refresher? I feel like every time I need to be reminded what the season is. Cruz is this in between season, between fall and spring. And it was originally-- they called it cruise, because it was the clothes that the elite--

the upper classes took on their cruises and other warm weather holidays when the upper e-ciders would head down to Palm Beach, say, for the winter to keep warm. And so they'd need their beachy kind of clothes. And now, they pop up far, far along around the world.

And it's sort of this climate catastrophizing right? It was actually Carl Lagerfeld, who sort of got that started.

I remember the first Chanel cruise show

that was not in Paris. It was on the in-grand-central in one of those sort of-- what do you call that? Like a balcony, right above the Great Hall. And it's going pretty far back.

I will be dating myself if I say, hold on to go. That sounds like it was a question for show. Yes, it was before 2010. So it was a lot of time ago. So cool.

What were your favorite looks from the collection? What did you love about it? About this show? Yeah, about this show. Whoa, I thought what Sarah Mower said was really right.

The way that Metia can sort of make something extraordinarily special, but also quite easy to wear, which is a really hard combination to get. But he's really getting it with their dropway silhouettes, which is obviously a callback to Cocoa.

I really liked the very full skirts. They were almost like grassy beach skirts with the half zip. The quarters zip. Yeah, I love that. The evolution of the quarters, I guess.

I've been feeling a cool as it lately. And Metia, himself, wears them every day. And so does Bovita, who was-- She was scouted.

“And I think I'm gonna be your cover girl.”

Oh, is that great to show cover girl? Yeah, and on that note, I just loved the casting. I love it. We're seeing who, who matches women are. This wonderful casting. You had that pregnant model, Kyle Wilkins.

She's a musician. So she's not sort of a traditional model. And then he has a wonderful vintage store owner, Stephanie. What's her last name? Cavali, Stephanie Cavali.

She has a store upstate. Yes, yes, who I'm obsessed with. And I've been mistaken for, in the Chanel store, which is quite embarrassing. But I mean, how fab she's like the most a fab woman ever.

And yeah, I just think we're getting a clearer idea of who his women on his models are. And I love that. Now, it feels like his world building is one step farther, which I really am excited about.

Next up, cruise show is the next big one on my itinerary is Dior NLA, which is on 14th. It's a lot of the ratios, right? This is a few. 13th.

And isn't something else for me to be a Gucci?

Well, so it's first, it's Dior NLA on 13th.

Then that weekend, it's Gucci and New York on the 16th. Then the following week, it's Vuitton, in New York,

are doing in New York. Very nice for us. I know. And now it's a little bit later in early June. Airmez is showing in LA.

And so is then, yeah, which will be a men's show.

Do we have any hunch about where I'm always sort of curious

“because I think both Nikolagaskir and Demna”

have very interesting choices for venues. Do we have any hunch? Where would be your dream place to see an epic show in New York? That hasn't been very secret ever about it. Where do we want it to be?

Where hasn't been used? Well, it's such a beautiful time of year. I think it would be cool to do something outside. I mean, we know that Nikolag loves architecture. Yeah.

I've got to see something at the cloister. I'm not sure. Is anything ever been done there? That's a good question. The cloister would be amazing.

I also can see Nikolag doing something at the UN, although that would be such an irony when they didn't. But that's-- When the middle of Central Park, for some reason. The problem with Central Park is that there's very rarely

permitting for tests. So it's a completely weather-dependent. I wanted to get married in Central Park. So I looked into this. And it's just-- it's very hard to take that risk.

Ralph Lauren did it. And they just took the risk. But they didn't-- it was covered. They didn't. So they must.

And it was kind of an undisputable. It wasn't in Bethesda found to you. Yeah. So it was under the underpass. Yeah.

That was the rainbow. It was beautiful, actually. Yeah. But no, I mean, exciting to see Vito and Gucci's version of their New York City moment.

Do you have any favorite show venues in New York where you've been like, oh, this venue? I loved the Tommy Hilfiger Ferry show. Oh, yes. That was so fun, and so charming, and cheeky, and delightful.

I also loved an insisting on knowing that that Ferry was not moving. She was like, I don't want to be at sea. Trying to think, I-- stressful, but also super on brand was like, Telfard did want to, I kind of a helicopter. Oh, a helicopter pad.

Was it a pouring rain? It would be great. I mean, but it was so on brand for Telfard. I'm actually excited to go to the store, because I haven't been, and I've heard, it's a really interesting shopping

experience. I think the same day that Telfard did that show at the Helopad. Rodarte did a show in the marble cemetery on Second Street, which is such a pretty nice show.

“I think that's what got married there, and it was so great.”

Such a beautiful, such a nice place. Sorry, I'm going off, Tangerine. But just thinking, you really love New York. I do! Mississippi!

Mississippi! There were major, I mean, to me, to resort shows that I stick out to me as being probably a nightmare for PR, or people organizing it, was the Chanel show in Havana, which had, I went to Havana a few years before that, and it's very challenging.

I wanted to go to that. I wanted to go to that. Obviously, that plane had very, very bad turbulence. People were freaked out. Oh, brilliant.

Are you there? Yes. Ask anybody. They'll reach their problems. I'm so happy.

But also, I thought the Jacques Amos show at Casemal Part Day was incredible.

I just saw just in a matter of beautiful space. But, yes, I do think these resort moments are, to me, marketing at its best for these brands. Yes. Big news of the week for me is, finally, the mystery of the big rock on Zoys Zoie

Cravis' finger. She's, hey, I mean, they're engaged. It's like, who? What's crazy? Eight months.

“How can we, what couple are there when you know you can't commit them to?”

Who? I mean, I guess it's like her mom, like, actress and rock star? I mean, she's kind of repeating history. It's sort of a Jerry Hall, Mick Jagger, like, I don't know, yeah. But, yes, there's, there's a lot happening.

I also love that she's, like, has a collaboration with Jessica McCormack and then got a Jessica McCormack. I mean, that's a real classic rock. Unmissable. It's, yeah.

It's really good. How many cowards do you think it is? Well, she's also so small that the ring looks very delicate, lady. But yeah, I'm really excited for them. I think, I think Harry's such an emotional sweet guy and he needs someone who understands

his world and she gets it. You know, she grew up in that world and she understands what it means to give an artist,

like, a space but also to be supportive and knows what it means to have, like, a million

eyes on you at all times. Yeah. So I think they're just kind of the hottest couple ever. Yeah. Well, maybe not ever, but they're the hottest couple.

Okay. Let's close out headlines on some, Matt Galler-related items. We've been doing so much fun, lead up content. I loved Hannah Jackson's story on Vogue Staffers' favorite pieces of clothing in art. I love flaming June, but also any of the stripes in VR paintings.

And I also, obviously, the blue dress in the Comptestosalville and the anchor painting. That's that the fric is one of my favorites. What about you guys? I chose the kiss by Gustav Clems, massive poster above my bed in junior year in college.

I love that. And for anyone who wants to be part of the Met Galler Prep, come to the Vogue Cafe this weekend. It is popping up at Ultra Paradee So here in New York City in Soho. There are nibbles because of the food that we have. Amazing.

Well, there's Ultra Paradee Soho food but also we have amazing pastries from honey's bakery,

which we're very excited about. And it's our first full cafe in New York. So we're very excited. Doors open to the public at 10 a.m. on Saturday. And from 9 a.m. on Sunday in Monday.

So drop in. Show me you had such a fabulous one, London. Yeah, it was fun. But I love Ultra Paradee.

“So I'm very excited to see the New York one and I think it's going to be.”

It's going to be something for this. And Nicole, what are you doing? I'm doing live taping of the podcast with Tory Birch on Saturday. And there will also be a screening of the documentary, The First Monday in May, as well as additional other programming.

The cafe is open to the public. Some of these events require registration, however. So check the app right now. Tap on your vote gap. All right.

Thank you guys for so much fun to have trauma in the studio in the flesh. Now onto my conversation with Kate Young and Billy Norwich. The run to we'll be back in just a moment. (upbeat music) - Comprehensive.

- Witty. - Speculative. - Critical. - Insightful. - Profound.

- Why gringing?

“- Hopefully it doesn't take itself too too seriously.”

- I'm David Remnick and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour. My colleagues and I try to make sense of what's happening in this chaotic world. I hope you'll join us for the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts. - The thoughtful. Please quiz it.

Just, you know, we're real. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - All right. Hi everybody.

Thank you for staying. We appreciate it. I hope that you enjoyed the devilish product too. And as we've been reading the book and revisiting the first movie, there have been many conversations in our office about fact checking,

fact versus fiction of what the book and the movie were really like, compared to what it was actually like in the early arts. And none better to discuss that with us than K. Young and Billy Norwich.

Billy was a incredible writer and editor who worked at Vogue in the late '90s

and in the early arts. And I will say, many think he is a part inspiration for Nigel himself. So, Billy, please come. (audience applauding) And K. Young is an incredible stylist who's many beautiful dresses you have seen

on red carpets, the world over and you don't even know it. Well, a lot of you do. And she worked in Anna's office in the time that Lauren Weisberger worked. They're not that year, but around the time. K. Thank you for being here.

(audience applauding) Can you both tell us what you're up to now, but also when you first started working at Vogue? I'm a celebrity stylist now. And I started writing, I started working from Anna,

the right kind of out of college, and I was in that office for one year. What year? 97?

“We figured this out on text, but I think it was 97?”

Okay. Billy, what about you? Well, in the 1980s, I was a very heavy drinker. And I, there was a restaurant, and it was not the editor of Vogue yet. I was tipsy, and when I was tipsy, I also thought I was at best bisexual. So, I started flirting with Anna.

Many years later, she became the editor of Vogue. This is such a better story than I thought it was gonna be.

I've never told you this story.

Exactly. And I think that I'm not to digress, but I think if you're a gay man, and you think a woman's beautiful, it can be the highest form of friendship. So, she became the editor of Vogue. I always wanted to work at Vogue.

I had a cousin in the old days, you know, Vogue used to be twice a month. And she was an illustrator, and she's become physicist. So, I worked at Vogue, but the concurrent with that would just call the British model. I had a newspaper job, and from 1995 to 1991, I wrote something called the William Norge column in the New York Daily News.

This is analog days, and then two years at the New York Post. When my office in Vogue and I would close the door, perhaps conflict of interest,

I'm sorry. 126 days a week.

“That's why, that's why when people say, "Well, you're a tool for the Internet,"”

which they do when they launch Vogue.com, whatever. More than a vlogger. Yeah. And they invented the computer at some point when I was a Vogue, so then I went and worked it in New York Times as the so-called "style and entertaining" editor, and there was the

copy editor there used to every time my name appeared as the entertaining editor. He would send the late at me, Amy Spimmler, who was my boss, asking, "How entertaining is the billionaire?" And then I went back to Vogue after Amy died, and was there until 2012, and then for the last 10 years I've been a editor of fashion and interior design at five and perhaps that's

what I do. Yay. Yay. Yay. Hey, what did you wear to your interview with Anna?

I had used all my graduation money to buy a Tom Ford Gucci first collection, blue satin

blouse. Wow. So, I wore that, and so I have it? No. She wear it.

There you go. Totally. And Patrick Cox shoes, which nobody remembers anymore, but they were really great. Okay.

“What was the hardest thing about starting an Anna's office?”

Well, I actually got hired by Paul Wilmont. He was the PR director at Vogue, and he left Vogue the day I started, and I spent a month in his office with nothing to do while he was setting up a whole new business. And there was like file cabinets of all the press on Vogue and Anna from like the last 15 years.

So, I read them. Wow.

So, I like new everything.

I read every article on Anna, I read every article on everybody who is at the magazine. So, I was kind of waiting for him to leave because Anna had already hired me. But I like kind of had this dead zone where I was in the office every day, and I just kind of like watch what was going on. So, I was really like, you were ready to go.

Yeah. I'm like Andy Sachs. Yeah, and I loved fashion. So, I was psyched about it all. Wow.

I want to know before we get into more about what it was like way back when. Yeah. Just think of the movie.

“When I saw the first movie, I, I, I, I think I told you this, but we went with Anna.”

And we didn't know what to do. Tell us about the group. So, we went in 2006 to a screening, it wasn't a premiere, it was a screening. And I went with Anna, and then I was delighted to be asked, too. What's it the one of the Paris?

At the Paris? I was also there. And you were there behind us, you know, you were ahead of us. When it was over, Anna was very intent on not being drawn into the publicity. So, she didn't want to get, have her picture taken with Maryl Streep.

But she wanted to wear a product. Which is her humor. Yeah. And then to see humor. And I'm wearing a product suit from when I could afford a product suit and the backside

is so thin.

And this might be the last time I get to wear it, but never mind.

So, when a movie was over and a lean forward, she'll tell me, "Are you okay?" Because I had no idea. In the book, it's a very tall man that we all assumed was Andre. However, when I went and read the book, you made me read this book. The, again, I realized it was a man this white, the character's Caucasian.

So I figured in the movie, and I was shocked that they thought we can't really caricature on Andre, but let's get the little Jew. And so, they got the little Jew, and I hated his ring. In the first movie, and I hated the ring. And so I said to Anna, "I hate his ring.

I would never wear it. I know. Goodbye." And off she ran and didn't have her picture taken. Now, how good a fashionista am I. That ring, I thought, before tonight, I should Google

the ring. Everybody in there, brother, wants the ring. There are copies and copies and copies of that ring. Absolutely. To folks should make a Stanley Tucci ring in the movie. I think we're okay.

But yeah. Wow, Kate, you started an Anna's office and you lost a year. And then where did you go? Fashion Market. But I had a lot of jobs.

So I was a fashion market assistant. When I started working at Vogue, Anna asked in the interview, what do you really want to do? Because everybody knows that's a temporary position, like, you know, there are 20 of us here, because you only do it for a few years, and then you do something else.

was a caption writer, a job came up, and they sent me home with like a spread and said write the captions. And I was like, oh, I don't want to do this. I want to be down, you know, like, where Grace had all the racks, and they were like packing for her where I lit, and I was like, I want to be there.

So I told Anna that, and then the market director needed an assistant, and I didn't want to work there at all. All those girls sat in a pen and just got like yelled at by the fashion editors who were like stealing the clothes all day long.

“And Anna said, well, if you want to be a stylist, you have to be a market, you know, like,”

you need to do that. That's foundational. So I went and did that for a long time, and were you there when, fully long time? The devil's product came out, think I was Tony's assistant. You know, I mean, we've talked about this a lot.

I mean, you went to see it.

I read the gal, is I never read the book.

I never saw the movie. Okay. So the movie, it's sort of spreading around the office that there's this galley. Yeah. How do you get it?

Lisa love got it. And send it to us in, like, inner office mail, because it couldn't come, like, and then we'd, like, grow in the, like, loading dock where you could smoke at four times square and, like, read it to each other, it was horrible. It was horrible.

Yeah. What is so now, you know, I mean, it's cool that everybody likes it. Now, and everybody thinks it's cool, but at the time, it was like, she just was making fun of us. Yeah.

I read on the way down here, Capet did the, oh my god, I just read that. How about that? The movie. Do you think it holds up? Yeah.

Sure. Capet's was a feature, I don't know, where the last title was, probably, features director. And then she left to become the other in chief of harvest bizarre. Therefore, she was in a position to be asked by the New York Times to review the

Devil Wears Prada, and it is accurate, cutting, cutting, cutting, clever, and cutting.

“And worth the read, I think that really speaks to our experience at the time of when the”

book came out and then the movie with very different experiences, the movie quickly became charm, charm, charm, and giggles, giggles, giggles. That's all, and no, no, that's not a question, and we all memorized it. But the book was, well, I had to leave in order, for people work so hard. Now, it might have been about getting the chief formed tall tied together sometimes down

the hall, but there was such a high level of perfectionism, and I never heard, and I suppose

there are some erases there working at folk, I wasn't aware of anyone. I had to leave folk and go to that other job, and hear someone scream, "I don't need this job," said the rich person working, everyone just worked at folk and it was very democratic that way, but I'm digressing. No, I mean, I said to you, like, we talked about this before, and like, when I got to

go, I was like, "Oh, I fit in here," like, "Why?" Because everyone worked so hard, everyone was so smart, they all looked, I mean, look at them, everyone's so chic, they're so beautiful, they're like, look, look, look, look, we're down the hall, like, running because everything was important, and they could all talk about shoes for like a day.

And it's the first time I was like, "Oh, I'm not a freak. I love these people. Everyone who worked, there was amazing." So the book was hard, because I was like, "Billy, what's your biggest pet peeve about the first or second movie?"

In fact, first fiction was. My pet peeve would be every time I got on an airplane, that's what was playing. And so I couldn't escape the first movie.

“But I think, do we have time for me to tell an old history story?”

So what? World picture, I don't think anyone here can, World War II. The Saturday review was weekly, weekly, and the war comes. And there's a whole editorial that Folk has any respect for America, they would stop publishing. The editor of the Folk at those days and the woman chase, wrote an op-ed the next week,

saying, "We are so dedicated at Folk to what we call, she called, gracious living, that if our readers are ever thrown sackcloth, we know our readers will wear it with possess."

And to me that was always feeling blue wear red, fashion was an intervention.

It wasn't, we were not a shopping magazine, folk still isn't a shopping magazine.

It's exploring, I mean, Michael Booth droids here, the sainted features editor of Folk, back in those days.

“And everything, I mean, I remember saying to him, "Am I going to write another lipstick story”

this year?" He said, "Make it better than last year." And just finding the commonality, the human experience of that was what Folk was for me, was that, and still is, it's gracious living, you know, appreciation. Well, Billy, what I really was excited by, and I know a lot of my colleagues felt the same

way. It was last year, the New York Times published an interactive quiz that was a version of a... I got a perfect score of the text of you. Well, I've... Tell us about the quiz I'm talking about.

Yeah. With the convergence of the internet and cable TV, especially, oh, they needed free programming. So fashion became this thing. Everyone's filming fashion, filming fashion, giving it away free to not the magazines. And the magazines are trying to catch up with the website.

People may ever want to job in fashion. And people would come to folk with all due respect as anyone from HR here, "Why did you let them off those poor children?"

And Chloe, they would, "You got the sense, they never read folk."

So the late Charles Gandy and I were noticing this, and we came up with a list of 100 people that were sort of our constant cast of characters, whether they were, if they wrote a book, if they cough, if they made a frog, they got covered in foam, because they were the constant cast of characters, arts, theater, sport. So we made a list of 100 people.

This was before the computer. I don't know where the guy, Michael Grinbaum, got this list from. Did you send it to him? I didn't. I wish I had had a really copy of it.

And it was the test. And we would give it to people, "I love folk here, have to do this test."

“And what there had questions on, like who's Diane of England?”

Who's in a winter? And there would be people who didn't know. I mean, there were also questions about Proust, but sure. Well, I mean, didn't Irving Pan take a picture of Proust?

I mean, no, Proust was always discussed, because if you interviewed someone of folk, what

do you reading? They didn't read you to the grant, they were reading. I'm rereading the remembrance of things past. Look at my wicker garden. And it was, yes, so we did this test.

Well, it went viral because they made a t-shirt, Chloe. I have the t-shirt. Oh, I know. I do too. I mean, I don't.

We'll get you. I'll give you mine. It doesn't really fit me.

“Run through it, we'll be back in just a moment.”

Hi, I'm Rebecca Ford. And I'm John Ross. And we're the hosts of Little Gold Men, Vanity Fair's podcast for film, TV, and awards lovers. And just because the Oscars are done for now doesn't mean we are. Join us every week for coverage of the biggest stories in Hollywood, interviews with today's

brightest stars, and so much more. Listen to Little Gold Men every Thursday wherever you get your podcasts. Billing Kate, we are one week out from the Met Gala. And I feel like the Met Gala today, juggernaut that it is, is different than it was, in the late 90s.

Kate, I want to know about your first Met Gala experience.

And I also want to know about this supposed kids table that apparently, oh, the party in the front room? Yeah. It was fun. Well, what did it happen?

So my first Met Gala, let's see, we got to our black, which I was really excited about. I told you. This is very rare. In a Vogue unit. Yeah.

So when I first started working at Vogue, they used to make all the staff. Working at parties where toka dresses, and nobody knows what that is anymore, but they were very chic, but I don't ever want to look like that. They were like Easter egg colored dresses. Toka.

Do you remember Mary on that journal? That's a 100 person. I remember. So. Perky.

Yeah. I got to wear black. It was very cool. And I had to memorize all the names. And so you were doing the real Emily Blun thing in the movie where she whispers the

Yeah.

We both stood behind her and had to know all the names.

And then Katherine Graham was there that night, and she was a little bit old. So my job was to make sure she got to the dinner.

“And then I think there was a gospel choir that you're, do you remember there was a year”

that gospel choir came down this day? Oh, there was. Yeah. Flagdress, pay Graham, and gospel. Yeah.

Twitter. Yeah. And then there used to be a party in the front room. And it was like fashion assistance and like PRs and people who worked for designers. And the tickets were cheap.

It was like a dance party. They were $150 and every day and you have 500 young people come. Yeah. But the good part was all the fancy people had to walk out through that. And people like cool people, you know, like Mark Jacobs would stay in dance with all the

assistance. It was fun.

And Mrs. Onassis and Mrs. Buck, Pat Buckley, that was, they always said it was their

favorite part of the night was seeing how the young people came and kind of presented themselves. At the party, it was very different. Billy, what was your first met? My first met was probably in 1985.

And I used to be at Christmas time and it would unveil the Christmas tree. And Pat Buckley, who was the wife of William, that Buckley junior, was the chairman of it. She had taken it over from Mrs. Freeland. And it was, it was rare that a celebrity, a movie person, or went to the met guy.

It was... You may be on say didn't host. You're on say didn't. She wasn't born yet. And I remember Bob Mackie, who was controversial because he was sequence.

Brought share. And I was a cub reporter and for the New York Daily News. And I shared what's hiding behind a pillar.

“She was so uncomfortable in her Bob Mackie, in her, where the hell am I in New York Society?”

What is New York Society?

So that was my first one.

And I went every year until 2016. Wow. Yeah. Great. So you went when it was bizarre?

Yeah. Because I had that I was covering. I would like to clear. And Harper's bizarre not B.I.Z. Yeah.

It was always bizarre. You know, Liz Tilbaris hosted it and he rest in peace. Last question, Kate. In an interview you gave a while back, you said that your advice to become a stylist was to max out your credit card and start smoking.

How do you launch yourself into your career? I don't think that's maybe true anymore. But you know, when I started, it mattered how you looked.

“You know, I think I certainly couldn't afford all the clothes that I was wearing when I was”

at a assistant, but like I wanted to fit in and I wanted to look a certain way. And smoking was like how you got to hang out with people who wouldn't normally talk to you. You know? Absolutely. Absolutely.

All right. Well, thank you guys so much and it's so exciting that everyone's here. Thank you Chloe and all. Thank you. Thank you Chloe.

Thank you Chloe. We're so excited to play just a pair of videos. Thank you, Billy. Thank you, Kate. That's it for the run through.

The run through with Vogue is produced by Chelsea Daniel, Alex DePama and Alex John Burns with Help from Emily Elias. The show is engineered by Brand Bandie and Mixed by Mike Kuchman. Bye. Comprehensive.

Whitty. Speculative. Critical. Insightful. Perfect.

Why gringing? Hopefully it doesn't take itself too too seriously. I'm David Remnick and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour. My colleagues and I try to make sense of what's happening in this chaotic world. I hope you'll join us for the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts.

The thoughtful. Mixed Quizzle, just, you know, real.