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2026 · From the album The Devil Wears Prada 2 (Music From The Motion Picture)
Material Lover
by SIENNA SPIRO
The reading
A defense of sensory, tactile pleasure as its own kind of intimacy, sung from inside the world of designer-clad ambition
02 · Interpretation
Sienna Spiro's 'Material Lover': Touch as a Love Language
The song is a pop monologue from someone who refuses to apologise for liking nice things, and who suspects that her appetite for texture, surface, and finish is closer to love than her critics realise.
Released on May 1, 2026 as part of the soundtrack to The Devil Wears Prada 2, 'Material Lover' arrives pre-loaded with context. The first Prada film turned the question of whether fashion is frivolous or serious into a generational debate, and Sienna Spiro's contribution slots neatly into that argument by taking the unfashionable side: yes, the things are the point, and no, that does not make the feeling fake. The clever move is that she keeps using the language of intimacy to describe shopping.
The opening: pleasure on a bad day
The first verse establishes the speaker's worldview in two lines. She likes "things you can buy with money," specifically on "a day that's wrong, but a day that's sunny." That pairing matters. Retail isn't escape from a catastrophe here; it's a small correction on an ordinary off day. She picks something up, handles it, puts it back on sale, and the repeated boast "they can't do it like me" suggests a connoisseur's pride, not a credit-card crisis. The second verse adds a physical vocabulary, a "burning fever" of want kept in check by feet on the ground. She is not out of control. She is, in her own framing, a professional feeler.
The chorus: the thesis
The chorus is where the song makes its actual argument. She craves "a real connection," and the way she pursues it is by turning a page with manicured hands whose colour matches her summer shade. The image is doing real work. Reading is the cultural shorthand for depth; manicures are the shorthand for vanity; she fuses them into one gesture. When she anticipates the objection ("some call that superficial / to wanna touch the cover"), she doesn't deny the charge. She accepts the word material and converts it from insult to identity. A material lover is a person who loves through materials, fabrics, paper, lacquer, skin.
The middle: a quick acknowledgement of the world
The second verse glances outside. Something out there is "not fair, not fair, not fair, it's a pattern." The line is deliberately unspecific. It could be social inequality, it could be industry politics, it could be the romantic landscape. She admits she sometimes "goes too far" but comes back quickly, which reads as a small confession folded inside the larger swagger. The point is not to dwell. The chorus returns, the position holds.
The outro: the bargain
The closing section breaks the song's cool. "I want a real thing now" repeats with rising urgency, and the playful "tu-ru-ru" syllables give way to a direct offer: "I could give a real thing to you." This is the song's quiet pivot. Up to this point she has been defending her own pleasures. At the end she's proposing an exchange, suggesting that the person who knows how to love objects properly might also know how to love a person properly. The taunt "say it when you don't want / say that you want more" treats desire as a negotiation she's comfortable winning.
Why it works on this soundtrack
For a Devil Wears Prada sequel, the song threads a needle. It doesn't moralise about luxury and it doesn't celebrate it cynically. It treats the love of beautiful objects as a sincere orientation toward the world, the way some people love music or food. In a franchise built around a young woman learning that fashion is not silly, 'Material Lover' is the version of that lesson sung from the other side, by someone who never needed to learn it. Whether it endures past the film cycle will depend on how durable that thesis feels outside the cinema, but as a three-minute pop argument it is unusually tidy.
Themes catalogued
03 · Lyrics
"Material Lover"
Well, I like these things you can buy with money
On a day that's wrong, but a day that's sunny
Pick it up with my hands, put it out on sale
They can't do it like me, can't do it like me
When it's all going up like a burning fever
My feet on the ground like a super feeler, yeah
And I don't know much, but I know this one thing
They can't do it like me
Can't do it like me, yeah
I crave a real connection
I like to turn the page
With my hands and my nails
That match my summer shade
Some call that superficial
To wanna touch the cover
But I'm a material lover, yeah
Material lover, mmh
When I step outside and I see what's happening
It's not fair, not fair, not fair, it's a pattern
When I go too far, but come back quickly
They can't do it like me
Can't do it like, they can't do it like me
I crave a real connection
I like to turn the page
With my hands and my nails
That match my summer shade
Some call that superficial
To wanna touch the cover
But I'm a material lover, yeah
A material lover
I want a real thing now, mmh
I want a real thing now
I do, I do, I do
Material lover, yeah
Ooh, tu-ru-ru, tu-ru, tu-tu
Oh-oh-oh
Materi-eria-al, say it when you don't want
I could give a real thing to you, oh
Materi-eria-al, say that you want more
I could give a real thing to you, oh
Lyrics via Google. Copyright belongs to rights holders.
04 · FAQ
Frequently asked
What does 'Material Lover' by Sienna Spiro actually mean?
What is the line 'some call that superficial to wanna touch the cover' about?
How does 'Material Lover' fit into The Devil Wears Prada 2 soundtrack?
Who is Sienna Spiro and is this her usual style?
Why does the outro repeat 'I want a real thing now'?
What does 'they can't do it like me' refer to in the song?
05 · Discography