The Pleasure Lists Q&A: Mikaela Dery
Pleasures, Curated by Mikaela Dery
We’re back with another installment of
: Pleasures, Curated.I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I enjoy getting to know members of the Pleasure Lists community and what makes their Pleasures tick.
Pleasures, Curated by
Mikaela Dery is a writer and events progammer from Sydney, Australia. She is the Director of the Unterberg Poetry Center at the 92nd Street Y, where she programs literary events of all kinds, and before that, she was the Director of Programming at McNally Jackson Books. She is the creator of Fashion Fiction, a reading series about fashion writing from the past and present. Her writing about clothes and books has appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Guernica, and elsewhere. She lives in Manhattan.
Location: Manhattan
Social: @mikidery // @fashionfiction45
Pleasures
Handmade invitations
On a Friday night a few weeks before my birthday this year, when it was very cold and I didn’t want to leave my apartment, I sent out a little flurry of text messages saying that I was cooking and that anyone could come by for dinner and a glass of wine at any point in the evening. This is one of my favorite kinds of Friday nights. I made a big pot of orzo with tomatoes and other vegetables I had in my refrigerator, which I kept warm on a low heat all night, and people swung by after work, before dates, on their way to parties, and hung out.
I had been thinking that it might be fun to have handwritten invitations for my birthday party (also held at my apartment), and at a certain point, it occurred to me that it would be even more fun (for me at least) to make that a collaborative project. I asked everyone to create an invitation using pink stationery my boyfriend bought me a few years ago. It turned out to be a truly delightful way to spend the evening, and I was incredibly charmed by the invitations that everyone created. I texted photos of them to my guests the (I invite every single person I run into to my birthday party, so mailing out individual invitations wasn’t a practical option, but as I’m writing this, I’m considering it for next year). I loved the invitation that my friend Enzo made so much that I’ve been meaning to get it framed.
Hosting/cleaning up after hosting
As you might have gathered, I love hosting. I do it for work, in a way, but I also love hosting any kind of party. I think this comes from Shabbat dinner at my parents' house growing up, which took place (and still takes place, although they share hosting duties with my brothers now) every Friday. My parents were not strict at all about my siblings and me attending these dinners, but usually all of us were there with various friends, boyfriends, and girlfriends. I am the fourth of five siblings, and now there are also wives and nieces and nephews, which is all to say, there could easily be 15-20 people around the table on any given Friday, including babies and toddlers.
My parents have always been fairly relaxed about all of this, which I think is why I am very relaxed about hosting, and therefore find it to be pleasurable. My parents would usually order dinner from a Hungarian restaurant called Twenty-One, owned by a man named George, who my dad went to high school with. For a while, George would make the Friday night deliveries himself, but he has since been reassigned because he would talk to everyone on the delivery route, and it would take too long. Other times, they would order schnitzel from an Austrian restaurant nearby. Someone was also usually tasked with picking up ice cream from Messina, which is (in my opinion) the best ice-cream in Sydney and perhaps the world. This was actually quite an undesirable task because there are lots of different flavors, and constantly rotating specials, and everyone has very strong opinions on it all.
I went to college in Sydney, which is where I grew up, and didn’t usually have classes on Fridays, and neither did my sister, so during that time we would run various errands with my mom, sometimes get lunch, and then help to set the table. I loved this routine, and still love running errands before a party, and setting the table. I also enjoyed dinner, but then I also very much enjoyed the wonderful silence when everyone left, and I could help my mom with the calming ritual of cleaning up.
I am not really an obsessive cleaner in my life generally, but I think I like the medium gratification of cleaning up after a party, which is to say, it takes a while to clean up but you can see the results relatively quickly. I find sometimes find it difficult to clearly see cause and effect at work in daily life, and I like seeing that in cleaning up. This same principle applies to the hungover clean-up with friends after a house party.
Bustling Around and Pottering Around
I’m listing these together because they are connected, but they are also quite different. Bustling around is when you have a lot of different engagements over the course of the day. Perhaps, for example, I have to buy a few things at C.O Bigelow, and then I have to buy a present for someone, and then maybe I want to buy one item of clothing to wear later, and then I decide I want to swing by something and say hi to a few people, and then I’m meeting a friend for a quick drink. I like to bustle around in the winter.
Pottering around is done in the home. I like to potter around in the summer, because a big part of it is opening all the windows, putting flowers in vases, putting berries in bowls for people to graze on, and refilling water jugs, and generally rearranging things. Pottering around isn’t really cleaning, and it isn’t meaningfully reorganizing anything.
When I am bustling around, I like to be wearing a coat and scarf, and then eventually arriving at a bar with cold, red cheeks, with lots of bags and parcels. When I am pottering around, I like to be wearing a long, light, billowy dress.
Drybar
I love my hair when it’s blown out, and if I had it my way nobody would ever see me without a blow out. I do not like blowing it out myself. I find the process boring, it hurts my arms, and no matter how many different tools I buy, my hair never looks as bouncy and shiny as when I have a professional attending to it.
When I first moved to New York, I was obsessed with going to Drybar. That was in 2019, and even then, I would find comfort in going and feeling the warm embrace of 2014. I mean that completely literally, not one thing about Drybar has changed since its mid-twenty-teens heyday. The “menu” where you can choose what kind of blowout you want has not ever been reprinted, as far as I can tell. It’s total mind-numbing bliss.
A couple of years ago, though, something shifted. I went to the Drybar in Meatpacking late in the afternoon on a Friday, and I was the only person there, they did not offer me a mimosa, and there was nothing on the TV (usually there is some sort of relaxing romcom playing with subtitles).
Around the same time I went to Indianapolis for a wedding, and to visit my boyfriend’s parents. I was thrilled to discover that Drybar Indianapolis continues to capture the joy of the Drybar glory days. When we visit for the holidays I always go. They have a Hallmark Christmas movie marathon on the screens, which is fantastic, and the place is always packed.
The Met Archives
The wonderful thing about The Met is that it’s so huge, you could go a million times and never feel as if you’ve seen everything. They also have so so many wonderful things that they literally cannot display them all, and that is why the online archive is so amazing. Recently, I was reading Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrot (it’s very good!! I don’t know why I waited so long to read it!), and there’s a scene where she buys a red velvet Chanel dress. It prompted me to search for red velvet Chanel dresses from the 1920s which led me here. Isn’t it so perfect??
On another recent search I found this wildly modern Vionnet dress from the 1930s, which was owned by Mona Bismark. I was delighted to learn that Mona Bismark was an American socialite from Lousville, Kentucky. She was married three times, once to James Irving Bush (the "handsomest man in America"), and eventually, according to The Met, became known as one of the best-dressed women in America. There is a lot more to that story, but I’ll let you have the pleasure of discovering it for yourself.
What does Pleasure mean to you?
I think pleasure is very linked to optimism and curiosity, both of which allow you to find pleasure in so many places.
Who do you want to see next? Send me suggestions for who to feature in the next Q&A!
What Is “Pleasures, Curated”?
Each week, a new Pleasure-seeker will document their personal Pleasures and ruminate a bit on what Pleasure means to them. True to
style, I keep the list-maker’s je ne sais quoi in as much as I can — only minor editorial changes are made when necessary. I do this intentionally so that the writer’s inner world really comes through. The style of the list says as much about the writer as the list itself.Read Previous Q&A’s:
The Pleasure Lists Q&A: Arielle Nir
We’re back with another installment of The Pleasure Lists: Pleasures, Curated.
The Pleasure Lists Q&A: Elisa Gabbert
We’re back with another installment of The Pleasure Lists: Pleasures, Curated.
Why submit a list?
Pleasure Lists are a summary of what you need, want, or have, or see at a particular moment in time. They are a survey, an overview, a summary of the crucial facts of the state of one aspect of your life. It’s a kind of blueprint that can be a guide to the future.
Mull it over and if you’re moved to, send me a list.
Questions? Comments? Send any recommendations or suggestions for what you’d like to see in these newsletters my way. I’d love to hear more about what you’re currently finding pleasure in.
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