Dear reader, it is a rarity in the modern world to find oneself slap-bang in the middle of a case of mistaken identity worthy of an Oscar Wilde farce, but find myself misidentified I do. I’m in a tight spot: Millions of TikTok followers have put two and two together—by which I mean one viral TikTok video, one novel, and one movie—and concluded that yours truly is the real inspiration for one of the snootiest fashion girls ever created: Emily, the hoity-toity English assistant to Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada.
A silent victim, I have suffered this slur quietly. I feared that speaking out—despite many brave women in the Vogue sisterhood urging me to—would only invite further cruel scrutiny from the bullying tweens of TikTok. But there was a moment, which took place in a London cinema just a few weeks ago, that made me realize I must come forward.
Picture the scene. I had just ensconced myself on a red velvet sofa in the Everyman Cinema in Bayswater to watch Wuthering Heights with my daughter Tess, 15, and her schoolfriend Ernie. They had insisted on going to the cinema early to watch all the trailers, so I settled in for a quick doze while the trailers smashed their way across the screen. I was startled when Tess suddenly shot up in her seat and yelled, “Mum! It’s you!”
Photo: © 20th Century Fox Film Corp. / Courtesy Everett Collection
I looked up to find myself confronted by the sight of Emily Blunt, dressed head to toe in Dior, playing Emily in the trailer for DWP2. “Do my eyes deceive me?” she scathingly utters, squinting at Anne Hathaway’s Andy. The two are meeting again for the now-much-anticipated second installment of the movie franchise.
“Don’t be silly, that’s not me, darling,” I reprimanded Tess.
“No, no, it is,” Tess went on. “Everyone at school knows it’s you.”
“What? But Emily was so mean. I’m not mean.”
Ignoring this, Tess continued, “Mum, it is you. I searched it up.”
“Own it, Plum,” Ernie chimed in. “It’s a flex to be Emily.”
Sykes (right) at an Alexander McQueen Boutique opening party in 2002.Photo: Fairchild Archive / WWD / Penske Media / Getty Images
