Vogue head of editorial content Chloe Malle recently interviewed three of Anna Wintour’s former assistants for the magazine’s podcast. Given this is Vogue and the assistants remain Vogue employees, it came off as a highly sanitized version of what that job is and has historically been like. The ostensible goal of the conversation was to determine how closely working for Anna hews to The Devil Wears Prada, retreading reporting done by myself, The Cut, Jerry Oppenheimer, and others.

Unsurprisingly, the dish they served up was, well, rather cold.

“I had a 21-page handbook,” said one.

“When she asks for someone, she wants that person very quickly,” said another.

“She doesn’t want a robot — she wants people with personality,” added the third.

However, you can’t expect Malle to call up the assistants who didn’t last — either by choice or not. “On my first day, the assistant who was being promoted told me that if you worked at Vogue, you had to have a mental illness,” one told me when I was reporting Anna: The Biography. “Anna would call the third assistant by three different versions of her name... I'm still not sure if she didn't know the pronunciation or if she was doing it on purpose to drive home that she was unimportant.” Others told me about being asked to find her lost dogs, having to drop their weekend plans to help her, and not being allowed to take the subway so they always had cell reception in case she needed something.

In The Devil Wears Prada, we see Andy Sachs constantly stressed and repeatedly shamed — for being a size six, for wearing bad clothes, and for failing to meet a frequently impossible standard. I wondered if, 23 years after the book came out and 20 years after the movie premiered, fashion assistants are any better off. The consensus after chatting with half a dozen from across the industry (since, well, magazines barely exist anymore) over the last week? Not really.

Here are stories from four of them. I’ll send a second part with the rest for Premium subscribers soon.

Actually, they make assisting Anna in the aughts sound not all that bad.

"You Don't Even Call Dogs This Way."

I've been doing this for five years, based in Europe. We have a group of friends — stylists, assistants — and we function basically as a therapy group for each other. You need people who back you up, because this industry does not.

The older generation here is still completely in that Devil Wears Prada mindset. They don't even try to hide it. A well-known fashion director I know of — senior level, works with major brands — once told their assistant, mid-shoot, that they liked a particular look. The assistant said they liked it too. The director turned around and said:, “Maybe when you're a fashion director, you can have a voice. For now, shut up.”

That same person was shooting in the gardens of a protected villa — the kind of location where you sign agreements not to disturb anything, where the grounds are historic and you are a guest. She didn't like where a flower was positioned. So they walked over and ripped it out of the ground. Then they turned to their assistant and said…