Dear Ms. Austen,

I hope this letter finds you well—though of course, it never will. Time has a most inconvenient way of keeping us apart, and I suppose that’s for the best. I imagine you’d find my world rather absurd, and I suspect you’d say so in the most politely cutting manner. But still, I wanted to write.

You see, I’ve been thinking about you quite a bit lately. Perhaps it’s the season—fashion month is upon us again, and with it, the usual parade of pretension and panic. I sat in the front row this morning, legs crossed, sunglasses on even indoors, and watched a collection that claimed to be “inspired by women of quiet strength.” I almost laughed. Quiet strength. If only they knew.

You would have loathed the noise, I think. The clamor of influencers and photographers, the relentless flash of cameras, the way everyone seems to be performing rather than simply being. And yet, I suspect you would have seen through it all with the same clear-eyed wit that makes your characters so enduring. Elizabeth Bennet would have rolled her eyes at a TikTok runway recap, I’m quite certain.

I’ve often thought that we are not so different, you and I. You, with your needlepoint observations stitched into novels, and I, with my red pen and relentless standards. You edited society with ink; I do so with a front row seat and a black notebook. Both of us, perhaps, feared a little more than we were liked. But I’ve never much cared for popularity—I only ever cared for excellence.

I’ve been told I’m difficult. I’ve been called cold. I’ve even been mocked in print more times than I can count. And yet, I wonder if you ever faced the same quiet cruelty that comes with being a woman who refuses to apologize for her standards. You wrote about marriage as an economic transaction, and I live in a world where image is currency. We both understand the weight of expectation, and the danger of sentimentality.

Your Mr. Darcy, for all his pride, was ultimately redeemed by love. I suspect mine would be redeemed by a good tailor and a better publicist.

I often wonder what you would make of the modern woman. Would you be pleased by our freedoms, or horrified by our compromises? Would you laugh at our obsession with self-branding, or would you, perhaps, recognize in it the same desperation to be seen that drove so many of your heroines to the ballroom floor?

I recently re-read Emma, and I found myself thinking not of Emma, but of Miss Bates. Her irrelevance, her irrepressible chatter, the way she floats through life unnoticed. I thought of the countless women in fashion who are pushed aside once they pass a certain age, a certain aesthetic, a certain usefulness. I made a mental note to myself: never become irrelevant. Never stop being useful.

And yet, I also wonder if I’ve mistaken influence for impact. You wrote quietly, with precision and restraint. You never held a position of power, never dictated trends. And yet here you are, 200 years later, still shaping the way we see love, class, and ourselves. I’ve held power for decades, and I wonder if anything I’ve done will last even a fraction as long.

I suppose that is the difference. You had art. I have authority.

Still, I admire you. I admire your silence, your patience, your refusal to rush. I write in memos and margin notes; you wrote in chapters and wit. I think you would have hated my meetings, but enjoyed my margins.

If I could ask you one thing, it would be this: did you ever doubt that your words would matter? Did you ever sit at your writing desk, quill in hand, wondering if anyone would care?

I ask because I sometimes wonder the same thing, though I’d never admit it aloud.

With reluctant admiration,
Anna Wintour