This reflective sensibility defines Janes’ work: a belief in books as realms you enter slowly, and leave subtly altered. That sense of intimacy underpins Sendb00ks, the literary project Janes founded in 2018. The idea took shape while she was living in Paris and, over the course of six months, accumulated an overwhelming collection of titles. “I was leaving Paris and I didn’t know what to do with all my books,” she explains. In the hopes of rehoming them, she created an Instagram account, Sendb00ks, where she listed the available books and asked people to tell her what they were after. Janes woke up to more than 500 messages from young women all over the world who were keen to receive a book. She sent novels across continents and recalls how one young woman had her copy of Little Birds by Anaïs Nin confiscated for its erotic content.“I became aware of how the sleeves could also conceal the books’ contents, and though I was sorry the girl was grounded, I kind of found that premise very exciting, like the books could cross borders despite a government’s censorship.”

After Janes sent her personal collection, she was left with the desire to continue sendouts, and thus the project was born. Each month, she collaborates with an artist who selects a title that’s personally resonant to them. They design a bespoke cover sleeve for the book, Janes prints it, and readers can sign up to receive it via Sendb00ks. Artists have included Inès di Folco Jemni, Okiki Akinfe and Marie Hazard. But Janes doesn’t only commission visual artists. “We worked with Madison Willing, a composer, to send Frankenstein,” Janes says. “She wrote a piece of music inspired by the sense of longing the creature feels as he journeys across the alps seeking companionship. She told me cello is the most heartbreaking sound because it is closest to the human voice. We hosted a listening event to present the books.”

The next instalment will see a Tali Lennox-designed sleeve for one of Janes’ favourite books, The Debutante and Other Stories by Leonora Carrington. Performing different characters, Janes derives the same pleasure from stepping into worlds through literature as through modelling. Standing with the Chanel Denim makeup collection on the set of her SIDE-NOTE photoshoot, Janes reads aloud from the book, telling the story of a young woman who sends a hyena in her place to a debutante ball. “It’s incredibly macabre, and her stories are quite bizarre, but written in such deadpan English, feel absolutely plausible. They’re such a delight to read,” Janes says. “It’s kind of the perfect example of reading for pleasure’s sake. Too often we’re told we should read to develop, to optimise, to change. But why not just for pleasure, as a way to pass the time?”

Sendb00ks might have started as a personal project, but it’s grown beyond Janes herself to be a global network of readers, writers and artists. “A whole world tends to open up,” she says. “Sendb00ks is not really about me at all; it is all of the people who have collaborated, lent their time, or their reading or their artworks. It’s all of the writers who published their work and the publishers and translators who allowed for these stories to continue to travel and touch people hundreds of years or countries later.”