A Letter I’d Never Send

My Dearest Miss Austen,

I hope this letter finds you well, though I know full well it never will. Letters across centuries are a foolish indulgence, but then again, so are many things I’ve allowed myself in this life — and in this business.

I’ve just reread Pride and Prejudice for the umpteenth time, this time on a plane from Paris to New York, tucked beneath my Hermès scarf and between the pages of a much more modern tome that no one would dare question me for reading. You’ll be unsurprised to hear that I still find myself captivated by Elizabeth Bennet — her wit, her refusal to be cowed by status or circumstance. I daresay I admire her more than I should. She is, after all, entirely fictional. And yet, perhaps more real than many of the women who sit front row at my shows.

Forgive me, Miss Austen — or Jane, if I may be so bold — but I sometimes wonder what you’d make of our world. Not just the fashion, though I suspect you’d be both horrified and delighted by the spectacle of it all. No, I mean the entire theater of modern life. The way women are expected to perform, to be seen, to be admired — but rarely to be heard. You wrote of this in your own time, in drawing rooms and ballrooms. Now, it’s on Instagram and red carpets. The stage has changed; the script, not so much.

I’ve always believed in the power of appearance — not as vanity, but as a form of self-expression, even defiance. Elizabeth Bennet’s refusal to flatter Mr. Collins or Mr. Darcy is a kind of fashion statement in itself: I will not dress my opinions to please you. I’ve lived by that, too, in my own way. The sunglasses indoors, the bob, the editorial choices — all of it a kind of armor.

I imagine you would have made fun of me, gently, in your sharp way. Perhaps compared me to Lady Catherine de Bourgh — though I like to think I’ve never been quite so insufferable. Still, I can hear you now, writing a line that stings like a nettle and makes me laugh at the same time.

I wonder if you ever felt the weight of being a woman in a man’s world — or if that phrase sounds too modern for your time. I suspect you did, though. In every word you wrote that gave life to women who were more than wives or widows, more than ornaments in a drawing room. You gave them minds. And I like to think I’ve done the same, in my own realm.

I’ve often thought of commissioning a shoot inspired by your novels — not the bonnets and carriages, but the spirit of them. A modern Elizabeth in a sharp blazer, walking through Hyde Park with a copy of The Economist. Or a shoot on the quiet rebellion of women who choose not to marry, or who marry on their own terms. I suspect your characters would feel right at home in Vogue — if only they could stomach the retouching.

Forgive me for going on. I know you’d prefer brevity, and I do try to honor that. But there are times when I feel a kinship with women like you — those who carved space for themselves with words, with wit, with sheer will. And I suppose I wanted to say, across the centuries and the pages, thank you. For giving voice to the women who see the world clearly. For reminding us that sense and sensibility can coexist — and that sometimes, they must.

With admiration,
Anna

Talk to Anna Wintour on HoloDream — ask her which literary heroine she’d most like to style, or what she thinks of modern-day Mr. Darcys.