Chapter Thirty-Eight
Rosie checked the contents of her handbag one last time.
Purse. Phone. Directions. Satnav. Business cards.
Everything was there. Her stomach was doing flip-flops despite having mentally rehearsed everything she needed to say, and she sat down for a few moments to calm herself.
She picked up her phone and sent Emma a quick text.
Really nervous. Wish me luck. Going to need it!
The reply appeared while she was doing up her seat belt.
You don’t need it – you’ll be amazing! Go have fun!
As Rosie sped along the same route she had covered with Connor six weeks ago, she marvelled at how fast her life had changed, particularly since leaving Pennewicks three weeks ago.
From the minute she got up, Rosie was now planning projects, or jotting down new ideas, or sewing, and she rarely had time to dwell on the past.
Spurred on by the pictures in UpClose magazine, she had written to the one person she had an address for – Henrietta Malbury.
She had agonised for ages over what to write, and even whether to write at all, but in the end she’d opted for the straightforward approach, setting out as concisely as possible her business ideas and what she could offer.
If she had been asked at the time, she would have said the best she could hope for was some sort of reference or recommendation.
Possibly resulting in an enquiry if she was lucky.
However, she hadn’t reckoned on the campaigning zeal of Henrietta’s older sister, Francesca Malbury, known to her friends as Fran.
She had replied almost immediately, and seemed enthusiastic about Rosie’s idea for upcycling old clothes, and especially since the designer clothes favoured by many of her friends often got fewer wears than average before they were consigned to the recycling bin or worse, to landfill.
Fran was a firm believer in sustainable fashion and two weeks later, Rosie discovered that not only had Fran invited a group of her friends to Malbury Hall for afternoon tea to discuss this topic, but she was their guest speaker.
Now, as she pulled up outside the imposing front door, she couldn’t help but make comparisons to the last time she had visited. Today there were no uniformed staff directing cars, no field of Porsches and BMWs, no guests in cocktail dresses and dinner jackets.
The solid wooden door swung open and a tall brunette strode out to greet her.
Like her younger sister, Francesca had long slender legs, although hers were clad in washed denim rather than draped in blue taffeta.
However, unlike her sister’s long tresses, Fran had short hair, cut in almost a boyish style that gave her an elfin appearance.
‘Hi! You must be Rosie! Come in and get yourself settled. We’re all looking forward to meeting you.’
Rosie followed her into the hall, now devoid of balloons and garlands, but still imposing.
Like before, she paused to admire the architecture and the elegant dark oak staircase that led to the upper floors.
Bypassing the room where they held the party, Fran walked on to the end of the hallway and into a smaller room where a group of around a dozen women were chatting.
Their voices stilled as Rosie entered, and immediately her nerves returned.
The room had the same characteristic ceiling decoration but instead of wood panelling, there was a green floral-patterned wallpaper that reminded Rosie of the William Morris Willow pattern.
A number of chairs had been arranged in two rows facing one end of the room.
‘Hi, everyone, this is Rosie,’ announced Fran. ‘She’s going to talk to us today about upcycling clothes and how it will save you all money.’
‘And if you don’t care about the money, it will help save the planet,’ added Rosie as she fished a sheet of paper from her bag on which she had jotted down various notes.
‘Because according to recent statistics, in the UK we threw away over twelve billion pounds worth of clothes in one year alone that led to three hundred thousand tonnes of textiles ending up in landfill, and which is adding to our already significant carbon footprint. If you drill down these statistics, it means that on average, each person in the UK throws away eight items each year.’
A couple of the women looked rather sheepish and Rosie suspected they binned significantly more. She glanced at her notes before continuing.
‘So, did you know that in another survey, one in ten people admitted to throwing away clothes after just a few wears?’
There was a general murmur of guilty agreement.
‘And some even admitted to throwing away unused items that they couldn’t be bothered to take back to the shop.
Obviously it’s their prerogative whether or not to waste money, but there is another option, and that’s why I’m here today to hopefully convert you to the principles of upcycling. Let me show you a few photos.’
Rosie extracted some pictures from a folder and passed them to the women sitting at the front.
‘The salmon pink dress started life as a prom dress. You can see from the first photo that it had a large stain on the front, but by shortening the hem and using the surplus material from the skirt, I recreated a new bodice, and added a line of crystal beads to create a bit of interest around the neckline.’
The “before” photos of the dress had originally been to show Emma, but now, together with one of Emma wearing the finished creation, they perfectly illustrated how you could turn a damaged dress into a new outfit.
‘The jade green dress was one that I bought in a shop in Haxford; for Henrietta’s birthday party actually.
It had a pretty sweetheart neckline and shaped bodice, but the skirt was quite plain so I cut into it and sewed in godets.
These can be in the same colour as the dress if you want a fuller looking skirt, or you can use one or more contrasting colours as I did in this case. ’
There was a murmur of appreciative noises from her audience and someone asked, ‘Wasn’t this the dress that was photographed in UpClose magazine?’
Rosie smiled. ‘Yes, it was.’
‘And can you do that with any dress?’ asked someone else.
‘Or skirt,’ Rosie confirmed. ‘Giving you the advantage of having a unique item of clothing from something you were going to throw away.’
‘Are you selling baby wear as well?’ asked Fran, holding up one of the photos.
Rosie had deliberated for a while over whether to include this one in her fledgling photo gallery, but she was keen to raise awareness and maybe secure a few dress donations if she was lucky. Celebrity divorces occurred just as commonly as celebrity marriages these days.
‘I don’t sell them,’ Rosie replied. ‘I make them for a charity.’
She went on to explain briefly about angel dresses, and how much they were needed and appreciated by grieving parents.
For the first time, Rosie told a group of complete strangers how she herself had lost a baby, and how hurtful it is when everything is so clinical and part of a hospital process.
She saw one of her audience surreptitiously wiping her face as she spoke about this very sensitive subject.
She then described how, after discovering her husband had been having an affair, she cut up her wedding dress in a fit of anger. Several of the audience cheered at this point and she heard a ‘good on you!’ from a couple of people.
‘So if you know anyone that has an unwanted wedding dress sitting in an attic somewhere and wants to put it to good use, please get in touch,’ Rosie added.
Then she talked about ideas for upcycling various items of clothing.
Fran, it transpired, had encouraged her friends to bring along any items that were looking tired, damaged or things they had already worn plenty of times.
Rosie soon discovered that “plenty of times” didn’t always require counting on the fingers of both hands.
One older woman held up a beige coloured Gerard Darel suede jacket. Her puppy had chewed the ends of the sleeves as it hung over the side of a chair so it had gone in the recycling bag.
Rosie examined it carefully. ‘There are no signs of damage other than to the bottom of the sleeves here, so my suggestion would be to add a faux fur cuff. There are lots of different colours available and if you wanted to, you could add one to the collar as well.’
The woman seemed delighted with the suggestion and immediately asked Rosie to send her a price.
Rosie carefully folded the jacket and apologised that she didn’t have a formal receipt, but wrote a few details on the back of one of her business cards and promised to contact her in the next couple of days.
She was pleased with how her cards had turned out.
She had ordered them online and after a lot of brainstorming she’d finally decided to use the same logo she had stitched onto the angel dresses – a pink rose.
The one change she did make was her name; this was her new venture, it was nothing to do with James who didn’t even want her sewing machine in the flat in the first place, so she decided to use her maiden name: Rosie Devereux.
After examining a few more items with suggestions for improvements, it was time for a tea break. Rosie had assumed that afternoon refreshments meant tea and biscuits, so she was pleasantly surprised when Fran and a couple of the others came in bearing trays of delicious looking cakes and scones.
‘It always helps to keep friends with people who make cakes,’ joked Fran as she plonked her tray down on a table at the side of the room. ‘Please help yourselves. We don’t want leftovers as the chickens don’t eat cake. Oh, and the ones on the blue tray are for the gluten-free brigade.’
A few of the ladies politely resisted citing health-conscious reasons, which Rosie suspected was posh for I’m-on-a-diet.
The rest tucked in enthusiastically. She had no such dietary qualms, and after carefully moving any items of clothing out of the way, she bit into a scrumptious white chocolate and raspberry cupcake.
Fran had produced several items from her own wardrobe that she wanted Rosie’s opinion on, which they discussed over tea.
Making her angel baby clothes had given her a purpose, but now, for the first time since leaving Pennewicks, Rosie also felt appreciated.
She was still feeling her way and it was early days, but upcycling clothes was something she felt strongly about, and she was delighted to learn that Fran felt the same way.
In fact Fran felt strongly about a number of things, and over tea she regaled Rosie with stories of how she had sneaked out of the house as a teenager to join protest marches in London on everything from climate change, human rights abuses, or the illegal hunting of wild animals.
‘I once stormed out of a dinner party because one of Dad’s old cronies boasted halfway through the fish course about having shot a giraffe on some shooting party.
Dad grounded me for a week, but I got my own back.
While I was stuck in the house, I used an entire ream of paper printing out every picture of a giraffe I could find on the internet and stuck them up all over the house. ’
Rosie laughed. ‘What did your parents say about that?’
‘Dad was furious. I used glue on some of them and he had to have several wooden panels re-varnished.’
The conversation turned to more general matters and Rosie thoroughly enjoyed hearing all about their glamorous parties and exotic holiday destinations.
As she said goodbye to them all an hour and half later, she was genuinely sad to be leaving, and promised to keep in touch.
She had four items with her for alterations, and as she drove back, she mentally planned out the rest of her week.
She needed to source some materials and some faux fur, but she could probably get that locally at the haberdashery on Queen Street.
Something on her longer-term list of things to do was think about setting up a website.
Several people today had asked her about whether she had one, and now she had some customers, it would be worth considering.
More immediately, she could set up an Instagram page and upload the photos she already had.
First thing tomorrow she would look into how to get started on Instagram, and then give Simon a surprise when she started following him!