The Pleasure Lists Q&A: Rachel Seville Tashjian
Pleasures, Curated by Writer Rachel Seville Tashjian
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.
Reading Rachel’s writing is one of my Pleasures — each week, when her newsletter, Opulent Tips (“the internet’s first invitation-only Natural Style-Email Newsletter, answering all your burning questions about shopping, style...and life.”), lands in my inbox, my heart jumps with glee.
Pleasures, Curated by
Rachel Seville Tashjian is the fashion writer for The Washington Post, where she writes about clothing worn by the few and the many. She also writes the invitation-only newsletter Opulent Tips, the internet’s first shopping newsletter. She lives in New York with her husband and their miniature dachshund, Ritz.
Social: @theprophetpizza
Location: Manhattan
Pleasures
Christmas parties
I really like Christmas parties. I am not a relentless socializer, nor am I socially ambitious, but I love talking to strangers or people I wish I knew better, and my favorite way to converse is not to have people ask about my life (“How’s work going?” “What have you been up to?” – KILL ME!) but to ask them questions or discuss ideas. (Not like, “IDEAS.” More like, “Have you noticed everyone is fetishizing butter?” and “I thought Anora was stupid” and “Don’t you think that viral recipe is very bad?” and “What’s the best museum show you saw this year?”)
Christmas parties are the best way to do this, because you’re not celebrating anyone, and people are VERY merry. And I like dressing up, a lot, especially combining things I’ve had forever in new ways. Parties are great sartorial motivators for me.
Movies in the morning
If it’s November-February and I wake up before 7 am and I’m not on deadline, I like to watch a movie. I’ll pick a director or an actress and just go. Last year I did a huge slew of Lubitsch movies; currently, on the recommendation of an Instagram follower, I’m doing Douglas Sirk. I did Winona Ryder before that. It doesn’t all have to be technicolor whimsy or grumbling, though; I watched all the Kathryn Bigelow movies a few years ago. I adore her. I love women artists who have a lot of empathy for men.
Anyways, you’re done by 9:30 AM, just in time to get dressed and start working, and you’ve already had an indulgent, private experience.
My Alaia coat
I have come cautiously to Pieter Mulier’s Alaia, although now I think he’s really hitting his stride. I like anything that’s not for everybody, and his designs are aloof enough to be that way even though everyone is wearing his flats or knockoffs of them.
In his debut show, he had a very thick melton wool coat with a romantic but brave collar. It reminded me of what Marlene Dietrich would wear in a Sternberg movie. (I would describe many of my best clothes as “pre-code chic.”) The back is a rounded cocoon that gathers into a soft skirt, but from the front it’s as textbook as a sailor’s uniform. Oh God, I wanted this coat. Badly. I was at Bazaar at the time and I had access to a lot of industry discounts, but it was $6,500, so discounts didn’t really make a difference.
Worse still, my dear friend Alice Carriere, who is a very good partner in shopping and literature, showed up for lunch one day wearing her mother’s Alaia coat from the 1980s. Her mother, the late painter Jennifer Bartlett, wore Alaia in the way it should be worn, which is extravagantly and with no fear. Once I saw Alice buttoning that thing off, I knew I was done for.
At last, a year ago – so more than 12 months after it was in stores – the coat appeared on Yoox. I had some sort of insane gift card or credit from many months ago, and I snagged the coat for about $900. Isn’t that crazy?!
I wait all year for it to be cold enough to wear this coat, and then I wear it everyday. I have a few other coats, but this is the most gorgeous, functional and awesome thing I own. I don’t lose interest in my clothes – if anything, my affection for most of my clothing has grown, in some cases over decades – but this coat has a special effect on me.
Lunch
I like having dinner parties, but I’m not really interested in going out to dinner. I don’t love restaurants – too loud, too expensive, too underwhelming – but almost all of them are best at lunch. Starting lunch at 1 or 2 on a weekend with two or five people, and then ordering lots of dishes and sharing all of them, ending with some sort of little spirit and an espresso or tea.
I have also found, with my reading habits and my friends’ growing families, lunch parties are often more manageable than dinner parties. I’ve had a lot of lunches for friends recently – cold smoked pheasant and champagne, for example, or shrimp salad with green grapes suspended in white wine gelatin – I don’t know, it’s just more pleasurable for everyone. I like the idea of a nice lunch with 4 to 6 friends to close out the year or welcome a new one. Then you clean up, recline on the sofa and read something warm and dense, like James Joyce’s “The Dead.”
Brandenberg Concertos
This has become my and my husband’s Christmas outing tradition: seeing the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society perform the Brandenberg Concertos. Again, another great reason to dress up. Afterwards, we go to Cafe Fiorello, a great New York institution, and order martinis the size of our heads and share the lasagna, which is the size of a baby’s bathtub. I love this music; it feels like country house furniture, in that it should have a white scrim thrown over it in the off-season to keep it fresh. Does that make sense?
What does Pleasure mean to you?
Enjoying myself. I love enjoying myself. And you know, our culture has so little respect for pleasure. When we indulge or enjoy ourselves, it’s done in cheap or “disgusting” ways – binge eating, binge watching, binge blah blah – or considered shameful, something to hide. And I think this is one of the reasons many people look down on fashion – it’s about enjoying yourself and others, which is considered frivolous, and frivolity is small or stupid.
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:
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.
Join the chat below to connect with other members of the Pleasure List community:
Please share this newsletter! The Pleasure Lists is meant to be a collaborative project that calls people from all over to write, read, and share their pleasures — a global community of artists, writers, and pondering minds alike.
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Loved this so much!
I love the idea of small lunch gatherings, particularly in the winter.