Celestia, she felt old, sometimes. There it was, right in that phrase: no one swore by Celestia these days, but it just felt far too strange to use her friend’s name like that. Trip on the stair: Twilight! See the centrepiece of Coco’s new line: Twilight, that looks stunning! See the price she’s asking for it: Sweet Twilight Sparkle. Mmn. Youth be damned, it simply didn’t work. Rarity was a stickler for such things.
It wasn’t change she had a problem with, no. Rarity liked change. She liked seeing all the little alterations the season brought with it, even putting in a few of her own, here and there. The gentle (or dramatic!) rise and fall of waistlines, hemlines, shoulder-straps. How much forehoof it was fashionable to cover, how low the brim of one’s hat should dip. Change was exciting! And yet...and yet, and yet, and yet...
Well, she had eyes, had she not! Any mare could see! Holding up the new designs of spring against the old of yesteryear, well! It was hardly competition! No time for silhouette, for carefully considered curves, for form, for volume: cheap and fast, that was the new name of the game they played – and if it had happened to pass through pony hooves on the way to getting made! why, it was practically worthless. Shapeless manufactured ponyester sacks. That was mean, some of them showed promise. But the general point remained.
“Perhaps I should write a piece about it,” mused Rarity, one evening. “There’s an open column invitation in my name with the Hoofette.”
“Oh, yes,” said Coco, cheerfully. “That’ll go down a treat. I can see it now. HEADLINE: Old Mare Yells At Clouds.”
Rarity gasped. “Coco!”
“I mean, do you want to be?” said Coco, with a wry sort of smile. “Because darling, this is how it happens.”
“Hmh! So you think I’m getting old, do you.”
“Positively desiccated, you old nag.”
Rarity pouted. “Well! I suppose I’ll just give up and die now then, shall I? Quit while I’m ahead.”
“Better had,” agreed Coco. “Just be a darling and leave Rarity’s to moi, would you?”
They stared at each other for a whole two seconds before laughing.
“So you don’t agree,” said Rarity, later. “You’re perfectly content with the direction things are heading?”
Coco shrugged, took a delicate sip. “With everything? No, I wouldn’t say that. But I’m not sure ‘things’ are at all as bad as you make out. Fashion changes, darling. Get with the times.”
“Hush, you,” said Rarity, smiling. “Don’t give me me own advice. Haven’t you heard? I’m out of date, now.”
Well, it was all right for some, she thought, as she stood and stared and watched the models pass by. Dresses and hats and silk lingerie, stalking down the catwalk one by one, novelty fading, beauty gone. There was simply no art to it, any longer. Just more and more and more...
It was all that corporate interest. That’s what Twilight called it, anyway. She didn’t seem to like it any more than Rarity did, all this dealing with ponies who suddenly had a whole lot to say on the ways things should be done, and the gold to back it up as well. No class, perhaps, no taste – but bits, oh yes, as many bits as could be counted. Oil mares and stockponies and and businesscolts! Trendsetters without a trend to set. Rarity didn’t mean to sound like a snob, she hadn’t exactly been Equestria’s biggest fan of the old nobility (well...once upon a time, perhaps), but nowadays what passed for Canterlot’s elite was, quite plainly, crass. Blocks of colour, clashing fabric, textiles textureless, uncomfortable for no good reason. Dresses flat like great triangles. Hoofbands unadorned of solid gold. Pinstripe suits. Pinstripe. Why, maybe she would write that column after all.
“Darling,” said Rarity, more sharply than she would have liked, “you simply cannot be serious.”
“Serious?” the filly cried, “By Twilight, I am deadly serious! I’d like it all redone in yellow, thank you. Yellow suits are In, this season.”
“Are they,” said Rarity, just managing to keep the acid corroding her words entirely.
“I read it in the New Canterlot. Frisk & Fashion no5. Yellow ponyester: In. Petticoats, Prench & Princesses: Out. See.” She spread the magazine upon the table, pointing to a narrow column crammed around the margins of four truly nightmarish illustrations. “Aunty Earl says so.” Aunty Earl, if they ever met, was going to be getting words.
“Quite,” said Rarity. “But...ah, how to put this... Ponies of your situation, darling, generally don’t abide by what is said in fashion magazines.” She tried a smile. “That’s why you come to us.” Ten years ago, that would have worked. They used to care more about looking the part. Now, the part had started looking like them.
“Rarity.” She held up her hoof. “I’m not interested in being your little fashion experiment. The outfits are all organised already. Tiffin’s in purple, Lapis is blue, Cloud Striker’s gone gold, and I am in yellow.” Celestia have mercy. “So just finish the suit like I asked, please. I pay you well enough.”
Contractual obligations. Hmh! Rarity would show them contractual obligations, all right. They wanted yellow? They’d be getting yellow. Let them swing, if they were so set on it. Rarity had tried – nopony could say Rarity hadn’t tried. She...
She looked down at the fabric in her hooves, and sighed. Yes, she’d tried. For all the good it had done her. Out of fashion, out of stock. Where had all the style gone? The gems, the frills, the glitter, the passion... Retired now, no doubt. Sat next to Celestia and Luna in some creaky old armchair watching the decades slide by. HEADLINE: Fashion Dead, Ponies Killed It. They were doing some interesting things in Yakyakistan, she heard. But here and now she was sitting and cutting yellow panels for a filly who wouldn’t know fashion if it hit her when crossing the road. Celestia, she felt tired.
The suit was a success. Yellow, ponyester, tacky. She was commissioned immediately for sixteen more.