Wuthering Heights has momentum again: and Airbnb lets you live inside it

Let’s face it: we have a toxic relationship with Wuthering Heights. Which is only fitting, since it’s the quintessential novel about toxic relationships. Every ten years we swear it’s over. That we’ve matured. That no new adaptation could possibly drag us back into the spiral of Cathy marrying someone else “because it’s more convenient,” and Heathcliff responding by turning his grief into a lifelong campaign of destruction against anyone unlucky enough to cross his path.

We know the story. We know how it ends. Yet we fall for it every single time.

It happened in 1939, when the first film adaptation cemented the couple’s Hollywood iconography in the collective imagination. Then again in the 1970s. In the 1990s with the now-canonical pairing of Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes. In 2011 with Andrea Arnold’s stripped-back reinterpretation. In 2022, when Kate Bush’s synth-pop lament went viral again thanks to the Netflix series Stranger Things. And it’s happening once more now, with Wuthering Heights directed by Emerald Fennell and starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.

Like any self-respecting dysfunctional relationship, the film strategically premiered on Valentine’s Day evening. Fennell — already the director of Promising Young Woman and Saltburn — transforms the wild moors into a carefully constructed visual apparatus, calibrated with almost manic precision. To achieve this, she turned, among others, to the acclaimed costume designer Jacqueline Durran (two Oscars and three BAFTAs), with whom she had previously collaborated on Barbie.

Durran is known less for strict historical accuracy than for her irreverent variations on a theme. Case in point: the infamous green dress worn by Keira Knightley in Atonement — set in the 1940s but inspired by 1920s Chanel designs. The gown left such a mark on the collective imagination that it even has its own Wikipedia page. Cathy’s costumes are no less daring. In this reinterpretation of nineteenth-century fashion, she appears in sweeping red latex skirts, fishnet layers, and theatrical silhouettes, with a sensuality so pronounced that one almost feels sympathy for Heathcliff — and his obsession.

The film’s aim is less to reconstruct a historical era than to stage an attitude: deep, absolute desire; dramatic fragility; and a certain kind of rebellion that never ceases to be glamorous. Thus, the most problematic couple in nineteenth-century England is transformed into what we would now call a shared “vibe,” capable of setting trends across fashion, beauty, and interior design.

Airbnb has taken note. In recent weeks, interest in West Yorkshire has risen by 59 percent among Gen Z travelers. The move comes through a partnership with Warner Bros.: a new immersive stay in “Cathy’s Bedroom” at Thrushcross Grange, recreated in line with the film’s aesthetic. What the platform offers is more than a visit to Brontë country; it is a fully inhabitable set. Walls in every shade of pink — from confectionery blush to antique rose to flesh tones — velvety surfaces, and decorative details designed to evoke the character’s physical presence: horse-shaped chocolates, fiery red jellies, polished silverware.

The package includes horseback rides across the moors, a visit to the Brontë Parsonage, afternoon tea, a candlelit dinner, and, to top it all off, a private listening session of the soundtrack by Charli xcx.

The phenomenon is not new. Set-jetting — tourism related to film locations — is now a stable component of the cultural industry. Here, however, the shift is more evident: the attraction lies no longer in visiting a filming location, but in inhabiting a fiction. If Emily Brontë’s novel is a radical text about the impossibility of social redemption and gendered tensions, shaped by resentment, desire, and destruction, how can it possibly be done justice in a plush, carpeted room — unless one walks in with boots still caked in mud?

Opening image: Cathy's room, part of the Airbnb experience inspired by Wuthering Heights. Photo: Nicolas Blandin, courtesy of Airbnb