If I Could Design A Wellbeing Experience For Each Woman In The Devil Wears Prada
- Maxine
- May 20
- 6 min read
A deeper look at stress, success, nervous system, and what each woman actually needed.
After spending the last few weeks writing about Miranda, Emily, and Andy, I found myself thinking about something deeper.
Not just who these women are.
But what they actually needed.
Because underneath the fashion, deadlines, pressure, ambition, performance, and polished exterior are three women carrying stress in completely different ways.
Three women with completely different nervous systems. Three women coping with success, responsibility, pressure, identity, and performance in very different forms.
And honestly?
I think that’s why The Devil Wears Prada still resonates so deeply all these years later.
Because most people are not simply watching these women.
They are recognising parts of themselves in them.
Sometimes we are:
And the truth is:
Each woman would need something completely different in order to truly feel well.
That’s one of the biggest misconceptions around wellbeing.
“People think wellbeing is one-size-fits-all. It isn’t.”
What restores one person may completely overwhelm another.
What grounds one person may irritate another
What one nervous system needs to feel safe, connected, clear, rested, energised, or emotionally regulated can look completely different depending on the person, the pressure they are carrying, and the season of life they are in.
And honestly?
That’s one of the reasons I care so deeply about the work I do through UNIKA.
Because I don’t believe wellbeing should feel performative.
I think it should feel personal.
Thoughtful.
Intentional.
Human.
Tailored.
Emotionally intelligent.
So naturally, my brain started wondering: If Miranda, Emily, and Andy walked into a UNIKA wellbeing experience…
What would they actually need?
Miranda Priestly — The Woman Carrying the Weight
Miranda would never attend a loud, overly enthusiastic, surface-level wellness workshop.
Absolutely not. 😭
The older version of me might have thought:
“Oh, she just needs to relax.”
But honestly?
I don’t think that’s true at all.
Miranda does not need performative relaxation.
She needs relief from the emotional weight of constantly carrying everything.
There’s a difference.
Women like Miranda often spend years becoming the strong one.
The composed one.
The decision-maker.
The visionary.
The woman everybody relies on
And after a while, people stop seeing the human underneath the role.
Including her.
That’s why I don’t think a generic group workshop would actually serve Miranda particularly well.
Not initially anyway.
Miranda would need something bespoke.
Private.
Deeply intentional.
Something emotionally intelligent enough to meet her where she actually is.
No fluff.
No gimmicks.
No forced vulnerability.
No pretending.
She would need a space where she does not have to perform leadership for a moment.
A space where she can exhale without needing to manage the room.
And honestly?
I think women like Miranda benefit deeply from environments where they can connect with people who understand the level of pressure they are carrying.
Not because they think they are “better” than other people.
But because being deeply understood matters.
Especially for women carrying enormous responsibility.
Miranda’s wellbeing experience would probably include:
one-to-one guided sessions
nervous system regulation
reflective conversation
intentional movement
quiet luxury
strategic thinking space
meaningful connection with other high-level leaders
environments that feel grounding rather than overstimulating
Not because she is emotionally disconnected.
But because she has spent years training herself to hold everything together.
And eventually, even the strongest women need spaces where they do not have to carry the weight alone.
Emily Charlton — The Woman Running On Empty
Emily would be the woman saying: “I don’t have time for this.”
Whilst simultaneously needing it the most. 😭
Emily’s nervous system is operating at full speed almost all the time.
Urgency.
Pressure.
Performance.
Responsiveness.
Hyper-vigilance.
She has become so identified with being useful, capable, and exceptional that slowing down almost feels unsafe to her.
Because for women like Emily,
"Performance is not just ambition. It's protection."
“If I stay excellent, I stay valuable.”
That’s the deeper emotional truth underneath her character.
And honestly?
I think so many women live like this.
Especially high-performing women.
The women everyone depends on.
The women who always deliver.
The women who are coping beautifully externally whilst internally feeling exhausted.
Emily doesn’t need another productivity hack.
She needs nervous system support.
Real support.
The kind that allows her body to stop bracing for a moment. I imagine Emily initially arriving at a workshop still checking emails, still mentally working, still trying to stay “on.”
But slowly…
Through movement, breathwork, music, grounding practices, meaningful conversation, laughter, and emotional permission…
her body would begin softening.
That’s the thing about stress.
Many people don’t even realise how tightly they are holding themselves until they finally experience release.
Emily would benefit from:
stress-relieving movement
breathwork
guided mindfulness
music-led experiences
emotional decompression
spaces where joy exists without productivity attached to it
environments where she can simply be instead of constantly achieving
And perhaps that's why...
One of the most healing things for women like Emily is realising their worth still exists even when they are resting.
That they do not have to earn exhaustion in order to deserve success.
That rest is not weakness.
It’s maintenance.
Andy Sachs — The Woman Becoming
Andy’s needs are completely different again.
Because unlike Miranda or Emily, Andy’s deepest struggle is not necessarily pressure alone.
It’s disconnection from herself underneath adaptation.
Andy spends so much time becoming what the environment needs her to be that eventually she begins losing touch with her own inner voice.
And honestly?
That happens to many ambitious people.
Particularly people in high-performance environments.
The constant adapting.
The constant performing.
The constant striving.
The constant becoming.
At some point, many people stop asking themselves:
“But what do I actually want?”
That’s why Andy’s wellbeing experience would need to feel exploratory.
Creative.
Reflective.
Less about “fixing” and more about reconnecting.
I imagine Andy thriving in experiences involving:
journaling
reflective prompts
music and movement
creative exploration
mindfulness practices
meaningful conversation
group connection
spaces that allow her to hear herself clearly again above all the outside noise
Because Andy doesn’t need more ambition.
She already has that.
She needs clarity.
She needs reconnection.
She needs space to figure out who she is outside of everybody else’s expectations.
And honestly?
I think many people are secretly craving exactly that.
Not just success.
But self-connection.
The Bigger Lesson Underneath All Three Woman
What fascinates me most about these characters is that none of them are weak.
They are all incredibly capable women.
Intelligent.
Driven.
Ambitious.
Committed.
Resilient.
"But capability does not cancel out humanity."
And I think sometimes society forgets that.
Especially with high-performing people.
We assume that because someone is functioning, they must also be okay.
But functioning and feeling connected to yourself are not always the same thing.
And this is why I believe wellbeing matters so deeply in leadership, workplaces, creative industries, and ambitious environments.
Because behind many polished people are nervous systems carrying enormous amounts of pressure silently.
And eventually, everybody needs somewhere to put that pressure down.
Not forever.
Just long enough to breathe.
Long enough to reconnect.
Long enough to hear themselves clearly again.
And perhaps that is the real lesson underneath The Devil Wears Prada:
Not simply how different women carry success…
But how different women carry stress.
And what becomes possible when they finally feel supported enough to stop carrying it all alone.
Maxine Anthony
Creative Director and Founder of UNIKA
A company that sits at the intersection of movement, mindfulness, and meaningful connection, creating experiences designed to help people feel more energised, present, connected, and human again.
UNIKA primarily works within the corporate space, delivering movement-led wellbeing workshops and dance & music entertainment experiences for conferences, galas, awards nights, team away days, learning and development sessions, onboarding programmes, brand activations, retreats, and wider corporate events.
Whether it’s helping a room recharge and reconnect through a wellbeing workshop, or shifting the atmosphere and energy through a high-impact entertainment experience, the intention is always the same:
To create experiences that people genuinely connect with and feel.
Because people remember how spaces made them feel long after the event is over.
To explore how UNIKA can support your organisation, team, event, or community through movement-led wellbeing workshops and high-impact entertainment experiences, feel free to get in touch below.
📱+44 (0)7740 070782
Comments