Chapter 6
‘To make a pretty dress… I guess there’s no choice but to go find out what a pretty dress is?’
But where are pretty dresses? Of course, they were at Sable Antelope too, but even more dresses were at the church located in the city’s square. Every Sunday, noble ladies came to church wearing the finest dresses that were beautifully adorned yet carefully restrained so as not to appear extravagant. So I too started getting up early on Sunday mornings and heading to church.
And I would sit by the fountain and appreciate the wealthy noble ladies’ hairstyles, hats, and the details of dress sleeve edges and long trailing hems, and sometimes even sketch them. If I sat there all day, around lunchtime I could also see ladies in promenade dresses strolling with parasols.
‘How many feathers did she put on that hat? What’s with that skirt? Isn’t it uncomfortable wearing clothes like that all day?’
In addition, I studied the capital’s fashion publications said to lead the latest trends.
It so happened that the Sable Antelope owner couple subscribed to those publications. And luckily, no one said anything if I stole a glance at a page or two when I had a spare moment.
As long as I did the work I was told!
When it became midnight after work ended, I would spread the publications in the attic and earnestly study the fashion terms and fabric types that didn’t quite enter my head.
And so, a portion of my wages disappeared as candle expenses for lighting the attic at night.
I don’t like my trait, but at this point I think I have to admit that my trait also has an advantage.
I was very sturdy and had the stamina to not get tired even when sleeping little and working a lot.
Meanwhile, two years had passed since I left the convent. In this city where the summer villas of lion houses were mixed among beautiful rolling hills called the “Valley of Lions,” the formal social season between spring and early summer had passed twice during that time.
The season when dressmakers overworked and sometimes even died with their faces buried in dresses began from early spring every year, two or three months before the social season. Of course, the most important social events, the opera and balls and such, were held in the capital, Londinium. But the suburban city where nobles’ villas gathered also held no fewer comparable events. Balls and banquets, concerts, and charity plays hosted by noble young ladies…
And noble young ladies needed new dresses for every single one of those events!
‘Just how much money do they have?’
During this period, work I had never even touched before started coming my way, like water overflowing a dam in a heavy rain.
To be honest, it was more accurate to say those tasks came my way not because they trusted my skills, but because they couldn’t possibly handle them all or were thrown my way like something discarded in the trash while more important work piled up. My senior Domaus worked until near death every day, and even after sleeping and waking up, the work increased again. She had to choose one of two options: dying crushed under work, or asking someone for help.
“Aagh!”
One day, Domaus let out a short scream like a mouse whose body had been stepped on, then with hollow eyes, holding her scissors, she gestured at me.
“Hey, you. Come here and try this.”
“Yes, yes, senior.”
I didn’t miss the opportunity and went to my senior with a light step. The first work she entrusted to me was sewing the inner lining of a dress sleeve. When I worked quickly beside her, she snatched up what I had made as if taking it and examined it meticulously with buttonhole-sized eyes, then said with a reluctant, irritated voice.
“Fine, well, it’s fine to do it like this. Bring your chair and come sit next to me.”
From then on, instead of odd jobs, she entrusted me with the work of sewing the inner linings and sleeve decorations of dresses and arranging the trains, working beside her.
The work, once, then twice came my way, and after I received the assessment of “well, this much is fine”, after that, it started coming without limit.
That way, after two years, I was even entrusted with bodices.
“Don’t touch the outer fabric. Not ever.”
Even if only the inner lining.
The “bodice” was the part corresponding to the upper garment of a dress, and it was the core of the dress that implicitly revealed the dress’s level and the wearer’s class. The outer fabric was lavishly decorated with expensive materials and jewels and embroidery, but the inner lining, for maintaining the garment’s shape, inserted sturdy materials like whalebone and steel to fix the customer’s body like a cylinder.
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