Is It Okay to Be Sexy?

A few months ago, Vogue teased the Annie Leibowitz-lensed portrait of the journalist, pilot and philanthropist Lauren Sànchez that would run in its December issue on Instagram. As of this newsletter’s press time, there were 3,454 comments underneath the photo, and though obviously I didn’t read them all, it quickly became clear that I didn’t really need to, as they clearly fell into a few distinct buckets. The majority addressed her fiancé Jeff Bezos (leading sub-threads: outsize wealth, exploitation of Amazon’s labor force, personal and corporate environmental footprint, tax dodging) and the audience’s overall distaste for the glorification of the uber-wealthy (for all of the aforementioned reasons). But once you sifted through the Bezos/Amazon content, it wasn’t all love for the bride-to-be, and if you’ve ever seen her, you can immediately guess the leading complaint: her appearance. Ms. Sànchez is a full-on bombshell, a flesh and blood Jessica Rabbit. Even in the outdoorsy gear she donned for the portfolio, shot at the couple’s Texas ranch, she made a tank top (seemingly without a bra), slim pants that seemed unlikely to have ever touched the backside of a horse and a (designer) shearling jacket look better suited to a night at the club than a home on the range. Want to know what kind of person Ms. Sànchez is? Just look at the way she dresses, they said contemptuously, going on to heap Bezos’s intent to marry such a person on his list of violations. Had you been an alien picked up by the multibillionaire’s Blue Origin who took to the app to learn what Earth’s people thought of the guy paying for your ride, it is likely your first observation would be: this planet’s inhabitants are remarkably warlike.

Bear in mind that Ms. Sànchez is in a bit of a damned-if-you-do scenario – if the fiancée of the world’s third-richest man didn’t exercise, was routinely photographed in overalls and Crocs and never wore makeup, the conversation would surely be “that’s who he’s with?” or “with all that cash, you’d think she could make more of an effort” rather than praising her for being natural or unaffected. But given the profile of the couple, their aspirations and their access to, well, pretty much everyone and everything, is it okay for a powerful woman to dress so sexy?