MICA

With the collection of Mica Ertegun coming up for sale at Christie’s in five parts this fall—starting live in New York tomorrow and Wednesday, and then continuing live and online in December—there has been much talk of this impossibly elegant woman and her impossibly elegant homes—and of course, that sensational art collection. This is a very long and meandering look at her constantly evolving NYC townhouse, with many photos, so will likely need to be read in your browser or the Substack app.

Here is the text of an Instagram post I made after her death last December, a short biography of her life:

Au revoir to the unimpeachably chic Mica Ertegun (Oct. 21, 1926 - December 2023). From an important Romanian family, after WWII she ended up a stateless, penniless refugee traveling across Europe and finally settling on a farm in Ontario with her aristocrat husband. In the late 1950s, she went to New York to meet a Turkish diplomat who she thought might be able to help free her father, imprisoned by the Communists in Romania for his ties to the former king—though she didn't get the assistance she needed, Mica did meet Ahmet Ertegun, the Turkish playboy founder of Atlantic Records. They fell in love, she divorced, and they married in 1961—the beginning of a long love affair that lasted until his death in 2007.

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Once in New York, Mica became an interior designer, founding the firm MAC II with socialite Chessy Rayner. MAC II's elegant interiors for famed homes worldwide, Mica's own exquisite personal style, and the Ertegun's renown as hosts helped Mica become a continuous presence on the pages of Vogue and Women's Wear Daily; she was both a member of Architectural Digest’s AD100 Hall of Fame and the International Best Dressed List.

What a life!

As I was going through all of Thea Porter’s papers over a decade ago, I discovered that Mica had been a client. I tried many times to reach out to her, hoping to get an interview, but it was never to be. Thea wasn’t the best at keeping records, so I do not know what Mica ordered from her—below is the only photo I’ve found of her in a Thea Porter dress. It is from 1968, but her measurements and address were found in books from the mid-to-late-1970s so she must have continued to be a client.

Thea Porter kept measurement cards for all her clients so they could order clothes from afar.

This is a page from Thea Porter’s client book from the mid-70s, which includes actress Britt Ekland alongside fashion designer Edith d’Errecalde, the wife of sculptor Sorel Etrog, and Ertegun.

Mica with Ahmet in a Thea Porter gown in 1968.

Mica’s impeccable taste was all her own. She went from living on a Canadian farm in “dungarees and sweaters and skirts,” to an instant access to all the best couture from both sides of the Atlantic. In 1967, Toni Kosover profiled Mica, the clotheshorse, in Women’s Wear Daily: