The woman who inspired Emily Blunt’s character in The Devil Wears Prada has been revealed as Nicola Peltz’s wedding dress stylist, Leslie Fremar.
Leslie worked as first assistant to Vogue’s former editor-in-chief Anna Wintour alongside junior assistant Lauren Weisberger, who went on to write the bestselling novel The Devil Wears Prada about her time there.
Now one of Hollywood’s most in-demand stylists, Leslie spoke with Vogue’s Head of Editorial Content Chloe Malle on the Run-Through podcast, during which she claimed to be the inspiration behind Emily Charlton, played by Blunt in the film.
‘I know I am. I am Emily,’ she said.
In the film 2006 film – adapted from Weisberger’s novel – Emily is a highly strung and irritable first assistant at editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly’s New York based Runway magazine – a fictional fashion bible, inspired by Vogue.
From her opening scene, villainous Emily behaves in a condescending manner towards the film’s protagonist Andy Sachs, played by Anne Hathaway, and ultimately finds herself out of favour with Priestly as Sachs’ editorial career takes off.
Leslie, who helped source Nicola Peltz’s Valentino wedding dress for her wedding to Brooklyn Beckham, also said one of the film’s most famous lines was a direct quote from her.
The woman who inspired the character of Emily in The Devil Wears Prada has been revealed as Nicola Peltz’s wedding dress stylist Leslie Fremar
Leslie spoke with Vogue’s Chloe Malle on the Run-Through podcast where she claimed to be the inspiration behind Emily Charlton, played by Emily Blunt in the film
‘I definitely told her a million girls would kill for the job,’ she said. ‘That was definitely my line, because I actually really believed that, and I knew that she didn’t necessarily want to be there.’
‘Even though someone obviously advised her to make it fiction, it was really based off of a lot of things that, you know, I lived, she lived.’
Weisberger worked as a junior assistant at Vogue for only eight months, with Leslie saying they were not friendly outside the office. She also felt the future author did not take the fashion business as seriously as she did.
‘I probably was not very nice, and I probably was high-strung because I felt like I was having to do her job as well,’ she said.
‘So for me, that was really frustrating. I think she was probably just sitting there writing a book and not necessarily taking the job as seriously as I did.’
Leslie said Weisberger’s book ‘felt like a betrayal’ and she never saw or spoke to her again after she left Vogue. She also thinks if the pair were ever to cross paths again it would be ‘awkward’.
Raised in Toronto, Canada, Leslie moved to the United States to pursue a career in the fashion industry, enrolling as a student at New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology.
But she says her eventual role as Anna Wintour’s assistant at US Vogue happened purely by chance.
‘When I was enrolled there, I interned at in the accessories department, so that kind of got me in the door when I first got here – but I didn’t know anybody except for my sister and roommate from Toronto and a few other Canadians,’ she told Into The Gloss.
‘I just felt like a fish out of water because I didn’t grow up in New York or in the culture, and I didn’t know anybody.
‘Then I got a job at American Vogue as Anna Wintour’s assistant that was just by luck. It took a lot of figuring it out and some sink-or-swim moments, but it was amazing.’
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Leslie worked as first assistant to Vogue’s former editor-in-chief Anna Wintour alongside Lauren Weisberger (pictured), who wrote The Devil Wears Prada about her time there
She added: ‘I worked for Anna for three years, and then I worked in the fashion department for Tonne Goodman for another two. They were very generous and let me go on trips with them to see if styling was really what I wanted to do.
‘Then, when I was 27, I went freelance and have done that ever since. I still do editorial shoots and advertisements now, but most of my work is collaborating on looks for the award season circuit.’
Leslie is now one of the fashion industry’s most in-demand stylists, and her work is regularly featured on red carpet at events including the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice Awards and the Academy Awards.
‘My clients are mostly in LA and New York, so that’s a lot of traveling,’ she explained. ‘There are so many shows these days -it’s about six months of work all-told.
‘I’m pretty proud of the work we did this past season—I had two clients nominated, and they probably each had 55 looks. I can’t pick a favorite, but I’m very proud of the work we did.’
Leslie has served as Nicola Peltz’s go-to stylist for more a decade and was a prominent member of the team responsible for arranging her wedding day look alongside Victoria Beckham, who allegedly pulled out at the eleventh hour.
‘I really, really wanted to wear [a VB dress] and I thought it was so beautiful that Brooklyn’s mom got to make that for me! And I was really excited to wear it! And I didn’t end up wearing it,’ Nicola told Grazia in 2022.
‘The truth is that I was in a text chain with my mom, Victoria and Leslie, who’s been my stylist for 10 years.
‘We all were on this tech chain together, and I was so excited to start the design process. Um, and then Victoria was like… Oh! And this was in the middle of me filming [her directorial debut] Lola James! So I was very busy.
‘And then she, Victoria, was very busy, and then we started this text chain, and a few days went by, and I didn’t hear anything, then I think Victoria thought since I was on set, maybe she didn’t want to upset me, so she called my mom and said that she couldn’t make the dress. She said that her atelier couldn’t make the dress in time…’
Leslie is now one of the fashion industry’s most in-demand stylists, and her work is regularly featured on red carpet at events including the Golden Globes, and the Academy Awards
Weisberger wrote an essay for Vogue where she recalled writing The Devil Wears Prada at age 23 and she was not at all prepared for the global phenomenon it ended up becoming.
‘It wasn’t an attempt to take anyone down or exact some sort of revenge,’ she wrote.
‘I was just writing something that felt true to my experience as an assistant in very close proximity to a powerful woman—one who filled me with abject terror—before I had the distance or the maturity or the sense of self-preservation to round off the edges.’
She added: ‘If I wrote The Devil Wears Prada today, it would undoubtedly be different. Not softer, necessarily, but more layered. I have more empathy now—for the assistants and the bosses, for the 20-somethings trying to prove themselves, and for those who already have.’
The Devil Wears Prada 2 is slated for a May 1, 2026 release, marking exactly 20 years since the original took audiences behind the glossy yet cutthroat world of high fashion.
The sequel finds Runway editor Miranda Priestly (Streep) struggling against Emily, her former assistant turned rival executive, as they compete for advertising revenue amid declining print media, while Priestly nears retirement.
Emily is now a high-powered executive for a luxury group with advertising dollars that Miranda desperately needs.
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