In "The Devil Wears Prada" a lowly drudge turns New York spectacular with chic fashion. Will stylist Patricia Field transform moviegoers, too?

About halfway through The Devil Wears Prada, Andrea Sachs (played by Anne Hathaway) walks through revolving doors, descends subway stairs, and disappears behind taxis in fabulous outfit after fabulous outfit after fabulous outfit. Seven in all.

Andy is the unfortunate assistant of Runway magazine’s top editor, Miranda Priestly (coolly played by Meryl Streep). This two-minute montage in the film, which opens tomorrow, shows Andy coming into her fashion own with the help of a colleague, Nigel.

In real life, however, it was stylist Patricia Field, the Emmy Award-winning costume designer for Sex and the City, who dressed Andy up.

"These were going to be quick pops, so I had to use broad strokes," said Field, 64, clad in a black top from fashion retailer Zara and a pair of Jimmy Choo flip-flops.

"I couldn’t get too detailed about it. There was a green coat, a white coat, a black coat... . The coats just snapped you to attention."

The Devil Wears Prada is based on the 2003 novel by Lauren Weisberger, a former assistant to Vogue editor Anna Wintour. When the movie opens, Andy is intent on becoming a journalist; working for the "evil" Miranda is a means to an end. Andy’s lack of style is clear in her serviceable plaid skirts and cable-knit sweaters.

"She wears things that make her waist look thick," Field says. "She’s just not thinking about fashion."

In the coat montage, Field demonstrates her incomparable eye for mixing textures, colors and labels. The flash of Andy’s three-quarter-length coats - one in vintage kelly green with a leopard collar, one in black, and one in plush white, by Yigal Azrouel - is mesmerizing.

We can see ourselves similarly accessorized: high-heeled boots; oversized metallic Calvin Klein bags slung loosely over our forearms; sunglasses with dark aviator frames holding back messy bangs.

"Patricia Field taught me to be brave," said actress Emily Blunt, who plays Miranda’s insufferable assistant Emily. "She would always say, ’You are wearing it. That is fierce.’ I mean, she could make a sexy mini for me to wear out of a man’s sweater."

Field was going for the ultimate in office chic - that meant no skinny jeans or fitted jackets. Runway’s writers and editors slip on high heels and adjust twisted pencil skirts before Miranda’s arrival each day. When Andy brings "The Book," a mockup of the magazine, to Miranda’s apartment, she’s the total urban professional in a Chanel top and cropped black sweater, wide-legged black pants, and newsboy cap.

Assistant Emily wears lots of miniskirts and well-constructed shrunken jackets, designed by Rick Owens and Sass & Bide. Nigel, played by Stanley Tucci, is never without a tailored jacket (mostly Hugo Boss).

"What’s shocking is that these people are really dressed up," said Robert Verdi, host of E! Style. "I think this movie has the potential to subtly inspire people to stop dressing for everything as if going to the gym."

Could be, but Field doesn’t expect this movie to have the same impact Katharine Hepburn did onscreen in the 1930s, when women started wearing trousers in droves. Instead, she hopes the audience finds the clothing "aspirational."

And unlike in Hepburn’s days, when the celebrity look was hard to come by in stores, styles from Prada are right at moviegoers’ fingertips.

This week, eBay began auctioning 70 items from the film at www.devilwearspradamovie.ebay.com, including a Kate Spade clutch and a Dolce & Gabbana outfit worn by Streep. Fifty percent of the proceeds will go to the nonprofit Dress for Success.

For sale at Amazon.com is a distressed studded handbag by Patricia Field. Cost: $42.

More than 50 percent of Hathaway’s movie wardrobe came compliments of Chanel, Field said. Other labels featured are Dolce & Gabbana and Calvin Klein.

"We put her in labels, labels, labels," Field said. "She gets dressed off what’s in the [Runway magazine] Closet, and these are the labels that would be waiting in the Closet to be used in editorial."

Though the opening shows Miranda Priestly carrying a Prada bag - a nod to the movie’s title - Field took a more creative approach with Streep.

"Miranda was a queen," Field said. "She wore gilded jackets. She wore lots of furs. It was all about Bill Blass, Donna Karan and Prada. All of it was luxe."

Field is a fashion-industry darling now, but it wasn’t always that way.

She worked in retail for a few years and in 1966 opened a Greenwich Village store that would cater to the Studio 54 crowd. Her first gig as a costumer for the big screen came more than 20 years later, when Field outfitted Diane Lane for the 1987 movie Lady Beware.

Since then, she’s been the style muse for several movies and TV shows, such as ABC’s Hope & Faith and Spin City. Field was tapped as the lead costume designer for The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alec Baldwin. But she quit during filming, citing creative differences with the actors.

Now, she’s dressing actors for a new ABC drama, Six Degrees, that will look at how the lives of six New Yorkers intersect.

"Patricia Field is everybody’s first choice when you are doing a show about people in New York," said Stu Zicherman, the show’s executive producer and creator. "When you see characters dressed by her, you wish you were wearing what they are wearing."

Field’s relationship with the fashion community persuaded designers to risk the wrath of Wintour and lend her clothing to use in Prada.

"Some people were reluctant, yes," Field said. "But the fact is that there are so many clothes out there... . It didn’t make it an impossible chore."

In April, Field opened a new store in the East Village that includes a hair salon. Despite her mainstream success, the clothing here - pieces from her personal label, the House of Patricia Field, as well as whimsical dresses from Heatherette and Roberto Cavalli - are a testament to her wild and crazy side.

But also in the store is tangible proof of her other life - as the influential woman who put Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo on every woman’s radar.In the back are 10-foot-tall bamboo towers from Sex and the City and the white columns from Prada’s Closet.

"They are all just souvenirs of my fashion-movie time," Field said.