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When Mikaela Dery began her reading series Fashion Fiction<\/em><\/a> nearly a year ago, it functioned as a way to blend two of her great loves: fashion and literature. By day, a literary event programmer, Dery was in the middle of a particularly bleak winter when she decided to re-read Plum Sykes<\/a>\u2019s 2004 novel Bergdorf Blondes<\/em>. At the end, Sykes recalled her longtime Vogue<\/em> column \u201cFashion Fiction,\u201d which Dery loved, and sparks flew.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought literary fashion writing could be such a great series, and I can call it \u2018Fashion Fiction,\u2019 even though you don\u2019t have to read fiction,\u201d Dery explains. She reached out to Sykes for her blessing to use the name, which was granted.<\/p>\n At Dery\u2019s series, fashion writing is treated as a true literary art form. \u201cSomething I really love about it is decoupling fashion from commerce and [following] it as an intellectual pursuit,\u201d she says. \u201cI think that\u2019s what makes it really exciting to me: fashion can be part of your life of the mind.\u201d<\/p>\n Just shy of its first anniversary, Fashion Fiction<\/em> has now featured writers like Zoe Dubno<\/a>, Doreen St. F\u00e9lix, Rachel Syme, and Katie Roiphe, and partnered with the likes of Warby Parker and Serviette fragrances. The event remains free and, as Dery puts it, \u201cmonthly-ish,\u201d rotating through a few venues around town. By now, it\u2019s developed a bit of a cult following, with each reading selling out within hours, if not minutes.<\/p>\n At the most recent iteration, readers and their audience filed into Surrender Dorothy<\/a> on West 17th Street, where they sipped wine amid the vintage clothing. I spied at least two pairs of vintage Chanel flats, a Marilyn Monroe miniskirt, and a Spice World<\/em> T-shirt paired with a plaid pencil skirt. Reader Jonathan Woollen\u2019s lauded new translation of Superstars<\/em><\/a>, the cult-classic French novel by Ann Scott, was available for purchase near a tiara and a swath of sparkling rhinestones. Upstairs, in a small theater (the store\u2019s building belongs to an actor), nearly every seat was filled.<\/p>\n Writers can read any work of any genre\u2014whether it\u2019s their own or written by someone they admire\u2014so long as it\u2019s related to fashion. Actress and Surrender Dorothy co-owner Ruby McCollister<\/a> shared a story about an antique mall in Mansfield, Ohio. Amanda Lee Burkett, of the Substack You Can Talk About It, But Only With Me<\/em><\/a>, read a selection from the novel Nine and a Half Weeks<\/em> by Ingeborg Day (a.k.a. Elizabeth McNeill), describing the main male character\u2019s closet before \u201call the psychosexual stuff happens,\u201d as Burkett quipped. Writer David Kobe<\/a> unpacked his relationship with the aesthetics and attitude of basketball and the great Allen Iverson. Reading from Superstars<\/em>, Jonathan Woollen<\/a> set the scene before a queer French rave in the late 1990s, and writer Elisa Gonzalez<\/a> shared a selection about celebratory dress from a project she was working on. The entire time, the audience was rapt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n