When I studied English literature at university, it wasn’t the most stylish pursuit. I remember earnest conversations about the symbolism of train journeys in Henry James novels, and trying – mostly unsuccessfully – to understand what Roland Barthes was talking about. Fast forward to 2026, though, and these conversations are happening in far more fashionable environs than a lecture hall. With supermodels sharing reading lists and fashion brands setting up book clubs, we’re in an era when anything related to reading has enjoyed a significant glow-up. The most recent evidence is right there on our screens: a slew of syllabus-friendly novels are being adapted this autumn.
On Netflix, there’s Miles Franklin’s early feminist novel , John Steinbeck’s 1952 saga East of Eden, starring Florence Pugh and set to air in October, and Dolly Alderton’s much-anticipated this December. Also on the Austen reading list, there’s the current adaptation of in cinemas with Daisy Edgar-Jones. For a more mid-century offering, consider the upcoming take on Sylvia Plath’s 1963 novel , starring none other than Billie Eilish. All of which is great news for the season of cosy nights in, but there’s another positive side effect: the sight of all these literary heroines does wonders for the wardrobe.
As someone whose idea of a good time still centres around a good novel and a free afternoon, I have always been interested in what characters wear. Some of my favourite writers use clothes to tell all about their protagonists. See the “bland ugliness” of a skirt and blouse worn for work by Mary Gaitskill’s Debby in . F Scott Fitzgerald’s introduction of the flighty Daisy Buchanan wearing a “rippling and fluttering dress” in . Dressed-up Tish – “black, long-legged me, in a blue dress” – going to church in James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk. Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, under “the weight of the crinoline”. Sally Rooney’s Marianne Sheridan, uncomfortable and scrutinised at a party in her “filmy black dress”.
When these characters are brought to screen – as all of these have been – the wardrobe inspiration is more direct, because you can think of, say, Maggie Gyllenhaal as said secretary, or Kiki Layne as Tish. Olivia Petter, whose debut novel was published in 2024, says that screen adaptations of classics give heroines’ style a shorthand. “It can be one of the most memorable elements of an adaptation,” she argues. “Like Marge’s holiday outfits in , or Keira Knightley’s slinky emerald-green dress from , which I think about almost weekly.”
There’s no reason these new adaptations couldn’t have the same effect. The trailer for East of Eden finds Pugh in 19th century frills and patterns just asking to be updated for an era in which women can vote (we also enjoyed her off-screen Chloé moment while promoting the project), while photographs of an almost unrecognisable Eilish from the set of The Bell Jar – with the waved hair and wide skirts and short-sleeved sweaters of the ’50s – suggest the film could well be destined for fashion moodboards. The Austen industrial complex, meanwhile, will no doubt mean empire lines and reticules will be big for 2027.
Emma Firth, who curates the Rejection is Romantic literary salon, is on board with this idea: she cites , Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save the Waltz and A Room With a View as style inspiration, the latter particularly after the 1985 Merchant Ivory adaptation, with a young Helena Bonham Carter as heroine Lucy Honeychurch. “I was 19 when I read it for the first time,” she remembers. “There’s something so elegant and whimsical about her wardrobe in the adaptation which really captures her character.”
And then, of course, there are those characters who remain in our imagination. One of my favourite things I discovered researching this story was the volume of TikTok videos dedicated to the imagined make-up of Camilla Macaulay, from Donna Tartt’s , a classic book that has famously never been brought to the screen. Petter, meanwhile, has recently taken inspiration from Caroline Palmer’s , a novel set in the HQ of a Noughties magazine. “The main character, Clo, is constantly using fashion as a performance… There are lots of fur coats and leopard-print items she borrows, which is very much an aesthetic I’m always trying to replicate.”
Firth thinks the “in-our-head” factor might be why be key to why taking inspiration from a literary heroine feels so appealing right now. “There’s so much conversation about the future, AI, these very robotic things,” she argues. “I wonder whether there’s just this real desire to indulge in more fantasy, romanticism and softness – something that feels more tender.”