Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Walking through the glass doors of the Clarissa Lee Atelier on Monday, I’m greeted by the associates on the sales floor who aren’t with customers. It never gets old. One thing I deeply appreciate is that everyone Clarissa and Sonya have hired are kind, personable people.
They have the type of personality that immediately puts you at ease when you walk into a high-end store. They don’t judge customers and clients based on appearance. Like Disney cast members, they are there to guide you and give you a magical, memorable experience.
I ride the elevator to the workrooms on the second floor. The staff up here greets me with a chorus of smiles too.
“Hi, Min.”
“Cheers, Minerva.”
“Morning, Min.”
I wave to them. When I reach the conference room, my intern, Lea, attempts to wrestle my trench coat from my arms. That’s right. I have an intern.
I was thoroughly in the “no” camp of having one until Clarissa talked me into it.
She could suggest that I try a bath of hot lava and I’d probably go along with it.
But in this case, boy am I ecstatic she sent Lea my direction.
Lea is about five foot one and has waist-length jet-black hair.
She has a sharp mind, and is highly motivated and eager to learn.
“You know, hanging up my coat and getting me coffee when I arrive isn’t a part of your job description.”
“I know.” She nods and hands me the cup and my tablet. “It’s something I want to do. My mum has always taught me to respect your teachers. This is my way of thanking you for all the knowledge and experience you’re giving me.”
I give her a skeptical look. “Thank you.”
It’s nice and hot. The sugary notes of the cinnamon-bun latte dance on my taste buds. I feel a boost of energy hitting my system even though it’s physically impossible for the caffeine to have already affected me.
“Did you have a nice weekend?” I ask.
Lea shrugs. “It was fine. Mum and Dad came down from Birmingham to visit.”
“Did they pressure you to reconsider your plan to apply to the London School of Fashion?”
Lea gazes out the window overlooking the main road. The top of a double-decker bus is just visible. I know that look. It’s the same one I used to have when my parents asked me to reconsider my future in dance.
“They did.”
“And?”
“I got them to agree to let me finish out the internship before I made any formal decisions on uni.”
Lea is only seventeen and sat her A levels a year early. She’s earned places at Durham, Cambridge, and Edinburgh in chemistry if she passes on fashion.
“How about you? What did you do this weekend?”
I take another sip of my latte. “My best friend and I had a girls’ day at the St. George Hotel spa.”
“You didn’t go and view any flats?” she teases me.
“No.” I wince. “I know I should’ve, especially since the move-out date is less than three weeks away, but I just needed a me day.” I’ve been an emotional mess.
“Well, if you’re interested, I found a few flats that fit your criteria.” Lea clears her throat. “I emailed you the listing info and agent’s names about an hour ago.”
“Lea, you shouldn’t have.”
“I needed an excuse to escape Mum and Dad.” She turns and faces me.
“There is one in Whitechapel, one in Battersea, and one in Belsize Park. All of them need a bit of doing up, but they are projects that are mostly cosmetic. You get a lot more for your money if it’s a project flat than a move-in-ready place. ”
I’m speechless as I open my email. These are in budget, which I’ve been able to expand, thanks again to Clarissa. The question is how did Lea discover these gems? I’ve spent days and days scouring the listings and haven’t had much luck, and she’s found not only one but three potential options.
“Belsize Park is one of the priciest boroughs in London. This one has two rooms and a garden? Wow. I think that’s my favorite of the three,” I whisper.
“Mine too.”
We sit down at the round table next to one another and discuss the merits of each of the flats and what we would do to update it if we were blessed with an unlimited renovation budget.
Other members of the project team trickle in.
At eleven on the dot, Sonya joins us. She’s dressed today in a crisp white blouse and black-and-white houndstooth skirt.
Her hair is slicked back into a long ponytail.
“Happy Monday to you all.” She closes the door to the room and sets herself at the table.
“I can’t wait to hear how everything is coming along. ”
“Fantastic. Let’s get down to business. I have quite a few exciting updates to share with you.” I smile.
Lea dims the lights and pulls up the PowerPoint presentation she’s put together for me. The first slide contains photos of the mockups of the two wedding dresses.
“Over this past week, this amazing team has worked out all the kinks on the muslin prototype for both dresses and has moved on to the fabrication phase. The fabric bolts I ordered from Wentworth Textiles arrived last Thursday. The fabric has been cut and draped and work on the bodices of both garments is well underway.”
The screen changes. “Our plan this week is to finish the top by tomorrow, baste the skirt together to the bodice, and ask Clarissa to stop in for a fitting on Wednesday. As you can see from the projected timeline, dress one is on track to be completed by Friday, and dress two the following Wednesday.”
“Brilliant. What about the boleros and the maid of honor dress? How are we looking on those?” Sonya asks.
Lea advances to slide three. “I followed up with my Irish lacemakers, and unfortunately, the custom seahorse lace won’t be ready until Clarissa’s summer wedding. But I did manage to find a decent synthetic-lace substitute that contains seashells.”
My head seamstress, Emily, darts out of the room to collect a sample from her workstation. “Here it is.” She hands the sampler to Sonya, so she can inspect it closely.
“You’ll notice that the color is the exact same shade as the ivory silk,” I tell her.
“This is synthetic?” Sonya glances at me.
“I know, right? It feels like the real thing.”
“You could have fooled me. This is excellent.”
I internally let out a sigh of relief. I’m in the home stretch. This progress meeting is going better than I’d hoped. “Turning to your dress, the pattern has been cut and the muslin mockup will be finished by the end of this week.”
“Sooner. I’m aiming for Wednesday,” Emily promises.
“And what color have you picked for me?”
“A cherry-blossom pink.” My cheeks warm. “I noticed that’s your favorite shade of pink.”
“Very observant. It is indeed. I’m a Barbie girl. I can’t wait to see it!” The lights flick back on. Sonya swivels in her chair. “Seamstresses, how are we doing?”
“No problems to report, boss. Min is keeping us on track.”
“Wonderful. Then does anyone have any additional items they’d like to bring up?”
Everyone in the room stays silent. “No? Well, if anything changes, just send me a text or stop by my office. I’ll be catching up on a few housekeeping items today.”
Sonya waves goodbye and exits the room.
I stand. “Great job, everyone. I couldn’t be any happier with how that meeting went.
I’d just like to go around the table and touch base with everyone on how they’re feeling about this week’s goals.
Please be honest with me. As always, it’s okay to admit if you need an extra pair of hands.
We’re a team and we all have the same goal—to have a happy, radiant bride three weeks from now. ”
I try my best to inspire confidence and to re-create the style and tone I’ve seen my mentors have when they’re speaking to their project teams. I have a team of four working under me.
Everyone in this room, save Lea, is older and more experienced than me.
At first, I was worried they’d be jealous or take advantage of me, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
All the women at this table treat me like a professional. I may be a young, untested designer, but they all understand that Clarissa and Sonya wouldn’t have brought me on without a good reason. It’s not lost on me that these four seamstresses are among the best in the fashion industry.
The gowns they’ve personally worked on have been featured in fashion shows and graced the front covers of every major fashion magazine. So I try my best to treat them with the same respect they’re giving me. I think it’s working. They’ve even asked me to join them for drinks a few times.
“Melissa, why don’t we start with you.”
“Sure.” The red-headed seamstress rests her hands on the table. “On Friday, I got about halfway through the beadwork on the bodice before it was time to clock out. Today, I’m planning to finish it and begin building the bottom tulle layers of dress one’s skirt.”
Over lunch, I spend some time working one on one with Lea. It reminds me of when I used to help mentor some of the incoming apprentices to LABT as they adjusted to company life.
“Are these okay? Do you think the LSOF admissions board will find my sample portfolio strong enough?” Lea’s hands are folded on top of her lap. She bites her lower lip.
“These are better than okay,” I emphasize, setting the sketch pad with her work down on the conference room table. “I think the admissions committee is going to do a once-over and send you an automatic acceptance letter to the school.”
She beams at me. Over the past three weeks, it’s been a joy to watch my intern come out of her shell and start to see her build confidence.
“This red cheongsam dress, in particular, is stunning. Now I’m going to challenge you.” She gives me her full and undivided attention. “Do you think you can find a way to add some of your own flair into the dress?”
Her almond-brown eyes widen. “What do you mean?”
“When I look at this sketch, I see a design that’s beautiful, but I don’t see you in it. I want to be able to immediately glance at it and say, that’s a Lea Wong original.”
“Oh.” She hunches. “I thought I’d done that. I interlocked the letters L and W into the pattern.”
“That’s fantastic, except I wouldn’t have known that unless you told me.” I flip back to the page with the sketch in question. It’s a long sleeveless garment with a high collar. “The red on red makes the letters difficult to decipher. They are also really small.”
Her ears and neck color. “I wanted it to be subtle.”
“It still can be. You can make a minor tweak to it. Maybe you change the color of the interlocking letters to be yellow so it contrasts with the red.” I nod toward my tablet.
“Why don't you try playing with the design in a CAD program. It’ll make it seamless when you want to make any changes to it. Just the tap of your pencil.”
“Can you show me how? I’ve been afraid to mess around with it on my own.”
I raise an eyebrow. How can this girl, who’s so good at everything, be afraid to play with a design program? I guess she’s human after all.
“Of course.”
I give Lea a crash course, then give her free rein to do what she likes. Unsurprisingly, she takes to it quickly, and by the end of the lunch hour, has figured out how to do things that took me a whole semester to learn.
“Keep my tablet until the end of the day. See if you can come up with three different variants on the cheongsam. We can meet again at four, before we leave for the day.”
“Won’t you need your tablet?”
“No. I’m heading down to accessories to see about shoes, a veil, and a handbag.”
Lea clutches the device to her chest. “I’ll be ready,” she promises.
We part ways. As I walk past the sewing room, Emily and the other ladies are hard at work.
Like a high-end couture maison, they wear white lab coats to keep the gowns they’re fabricating clean.
Every time I pass through here, I have to stop and pinch myself.
Being here is my literal dream come true.
The accessories of the atelier are kept on the first floor in a wall-to-wall closet-style room.
Sonya mentioned that they needed a way to be able to see everything at once.
Speaking of Sonya, I suddenly realize I have no idea what Clarissa’s preference for shoes is going to be.
When I’ve seen her in the office, she’s in Converse or ballet flats.
However, a wedding day is a totally different affair.
Backtracking, I trek across the corridor to Sonya’s office. The door is propped open. She has her phone pressed against her ear but waves me inside.
“Clarissa, take a deep breath. It’s all going to work out. Look, I have Minerva right here.” Humor her, she mouths to me.
I have no idea what I’m walking into.
“What Sonya said—everything will be as smooth as a piece of mulberry silk.”
“See, bestie? Don’t worry about anything. Take the rest of the day off. Why not ring Patrick and see if he’s up for a trip to Kew Gardens. Maybe you’ll even run into that gardener, Old Jim.”
Sonya spends another minute calming Clarissa down, then finally disconnects the call.
“What an utter nightmare.” She rubs her temples. “Apologies for blindly bringing you into the fold like that, but Clarissa’s panic levels have just hit an all-time high.”
“Is she all right?”
“She will be. Sit, please.” Sonya sighs.
“I love Clarissa, but she is being too generous when it comes to accommodating everyone’s requests.
Take today, for instance—Clarissa has agreed to change her wedding venue to Patrick’s estate, Rainridge Manor, to appease his mum.
But doing that means, she’s going to have to find a new date for the traditional ceremony.
Rainridge Manor is a popular wedding destination, and it’s usually booked up pretty far in advance. ”
“Oh no.” My heart begins to ache. As if Clarissa’s life weren’t already chaotic enough, I can just picture the stress of having two families to appease.
“It gets worse,” Sonya deadpans. “Clarissa’s parents are also being insistent with her dress.”
I gulp. I think I know where this is heading and it’s about to add to my stress tenfold.
“I hate to do this to you, but we need to move up dress one’s completion and begin on a new dress two.”
“Okay.” My mouth is dry. “When is the new end date?”
“Friday.”
“As in this Friday? Five days from now.”
“Yes.”