[From tiles to trucks, art shapes daily life in ways we rarely notice — learn how Miranda Priestly’s iconic speech reveals how fashion, and art, intersect with our mundane everyday.]

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is shaping up to be the film event of the year. And even if you haven't seen the first movie, you’ve heard that iconic monologue. The one that enlightened an entire generation to the true and inescapable impact of fashion – and taught us all what cerulean blue is.

When fashion is dismissed as “stuff” by Anne Hathaway's Andy Sachs, Miranda Priestly – portrayed so poignantly by Meryl Streep – coolly, calmly, and soul-crushingly explains to her assistant that while she may disregard clothes, particularly her own, there is no escaping fashion. Her choices, as basic or unconsidered as they may appear, are the trickle-down of the imagination, craft, and strategy shaped within the fashion industry itself. This icy monologue about skill, effort, and industry looks into the face of those who see fashion as 'superficial' or 'ineffectual', and shows them two proverbial fingers. You may not realise, or even be able to understand it, but that does not make it any less important.

“That blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and it's sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact you’re wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of “stuff”.”

Whether Andy wanted to hear it or not, Miranda makes a valid point; one applicable to art as well as fashion. Art exists in everyday life; it is not restricted to galleries, and exclusively elite but built into our infrastructure, informing and being informed by what surrounds us.

For example, the floors and walls – our tiles – which inconspicuously line our homes, schools and offices are more than decorative, or even functional; they represent generations of craftsmanship and international confluence. Goan Azulejos tiles, for instance, born of cultural fusion from Portuguese occupation, and hand-painted to represent Goa’s landscapes, tell Goan stories. From Mario Miranda’s caricature art to fisherpeople, toddy tappers and kunbi life - they are in fact, paintings narrating history and documenting the art of everyday life. In essence, no different from miniaturist frescos across the walls of Rajasthan - masterful creations of public archives that showcase more than ornament. Art, created as expression, utilised for a purpose.

Even trucks in India, ubiquitous on the road, are moving displays of painting and typography. As ‘rolling homes’ for drivers who spend months on the road, they are illustrated with portraits of loved ones,  religious motifs, political slogans and lively decoration. Inspired by the world around them, their work draws from the vibrant and contrasting colours of folk art, plucking their distinct bold typography from old Bollywood posters. Whilst loud, and often aggressive, these trucks – like the best art – are in fact, deeply personal; a baring of the drivers’ souls; a manifesto of the self.

In India, a country which lives its history and future all at once, there is a perpetual need for expression – and we can see it baked into everyday practices through art; as a vehicle, mechanism, and liberator.

Art in the everyday blurs the clarity of its definition – often discounted as ‘art’ if used for a purpose. However, can we exclude anything created by undisputed masters of the industry from art? Iconic surrealist Salvador Dalí famously designed the label for Chupa Chup lollipops. Alphonse Mucha, a Czech illustrator who practiced during the Belle Epoque, brought Art Nouveau sensibilities to cigarette rolling paper through the JOB factory in France. In India, M F Hussain created wooden furniture and nursery accessories for children at Fantasy furniture studio.

Who’s to say that the everyday in itself isn’t art?

Objet trouvé, the artform of everyday, natural, or discarded “found objects”, uses everything but conventional art materials; its purpose is to make us reconsider what can and cannot be art. The most cited work of the 20th century, Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’, a urinal, is a work founded on this question. By presenting an everyday, mass-produced object as an artistic creation, Duchamp challenges what we perceive as holding artistic value, saying that the purpose of ‘Fountain’ was to raise an everyday object to “the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice." Subodh Gupta with household objects, thalis, tiffins, idli pans and cooking utensils and creates works that represent him, his past and future, his India. Tracey Emin’s ‘My Bed’ displays her own unmade mattress with items from her bedroom, amassed during a depressive episode, in a depiction of vulnerability, heartbreak and deteriorating mental health.

Art doesn’t flow in one direction; it finds its way into our everyday lives, and life is reflected back to us in art form. The indistinct boundaries between the mundane and the‘fine’ call for us to consider what we appreciate – following Miranda Priestly’s order to open our eyes to the idea that nothing, actually, is just “stuff”.