"But I can't!"
"You must!"
"But my research!"
"You have a team now."
"But my own abilities—"
"Are no doubt more thoroughly documented by now than anypony else's. Unless you've suddenly gained the ability to fly?"
"No."
"Control insects with a thought?"
"No."
"Breathe fire?"
"I have a spell for that, actually."
"Twilight."
"Fine. You win, Rarity. I'll take a vacation."
The fashionista grinned in glorious triumph. Victory had been a certainty from the start, it was only a matter of time until she wore Twilight down with her flawless logic. "I'm glad we could come to an agreement. You've been working yourself to the bone with all this research. It's not healthy."
"I've been taking breaks," Twilight protested but the words came out weak.
"Sleep does not count as a break. Nor does writing up research results!" Twilight's mouth clicked shut as Rarity cut off her rebuttal. "What you need—what we all need—is a few days off from all this research. Just a little bit of normality for a change.”
As normal as things could get when you ran the risk of spontaneously learning new skills at any given moment, but that was beside the point. “Which is why I've arranged a weekend getaway for the six of us at the Manefair Hotel in Manehattan. No research, no experiments. Just six best friends exploring one of the most beautiful cities in Equestria."
"Rarity!" Twilight gasped, "You didn't have to do that."
"I know, but I did!” she tittered. “It was really no trouble at all. I was planning on going anyway for Fashion Week, but the competition portion shouldn't take more than an afternoon or two, so I thought why not splurge and bring everyone along?" She leaned in and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I even managed to pull a few strings and get us all tickets to Hinny of the Hills!"
Twilight reeled back as though she'd been struck, but with a smile like she'd been kissed. "Hinny of the Hills?! But that show's been sold out for months! Getting tickets is impossible."
"Quite true, but you’ll find that 'sold out' rarely actually means 'full house'. These shows always keep a few seats open just in case a princess or big name celebrity should decide to drop in unexpectedly. Or in this case, a friend of the costume designer who called in a favor."
The wide smile on her face mirrored Twilight’s as she pulled her in close. “Trust me, this is going to be a marvelous trip and you’ll thank me before we’re done. I’ve planned out everything so nothing can go wrong!”
How had it all gone so terribly wrong?
Rarity was unused to the feeling of betrayal. It filled the hotel room like a miasma, thick and cloying, with acerbic flashes of anger and embarrassment. Had she been overly generous? Overly trusting? Perhaps. Had she been naive and let the good-neighborliness of Ponyville color her worldview so much that she failed to recognize that ponies in big cities like Manehattan would be more cutthroat and self-serving than they appeared on their own Bridleway shows? Also perhaps.
She’d been a fool for trusting Suri Polomare of all ponies to keep her word. That was why they hadn’t kept in contact after she’d moved to Manehattan in the first place.
But what hurt worse than the betrayal of her trust was the pain of seeing her hoof spun fabric, the shimmering centerpiece of her entire line, be used in such pedestrian designs. That was a stab to her creative soul worse than the knife in her back. Her fabric deserved to be the show-stopping center of attention; it practically demanded it. While Suri was clearly a competent seamstress, her designs merely followed popular trends and didn't take risks. It rankled to see her prized creation used as little more than a colorful paint job to uplift otherwise mediocre works. Like watching someone put gold leaf on a Hayburger's Double Hayconator with cheese.
The betrayal cut deep. Not just that it came from a mare who'd once been her friend, but a fellow burgeoning fashionista as well. Someone who also knew the struggles of trying to make it in the big leagues without a well-known sponsor. And despite that, Suri had decided that the quickest way to the top was by stepping on every other pony on the same journey.
A small part of her took grim satisfaction knowing that even if Suri managed to win the fashion show using her ill-gotten gains, she had no way to recreate the fabric that had pushed her to victory. Despite that small satisfaction, a much larger part of her just wanted to throw herself onto the hotel bed and bawl her eyes out.
Alas, she'd already been doing that for ten minutes now and it hadn't accomplished much more than make her friends worry and ruin her mascara.
"This can't be legal, right?" Pinkie asked, pacing with a worried energy that had no outlet. "You can tell whoever's running things and they'll disqualify her."
Rarity sighed, sat herself up, and steadied voice with a deep breath. "Perfectly legal, I'm afraid. It's shameless and dishonest and goes against the very spirit of fashion week, but not strictly against contest rules."
"And it's not against the rules to use your dresses with the same fabric, but if ya do they might think yer copyin' her." Applejack nodded in sympathy. "It ain't fair, but it makes sense. Same as if Ah went to a rodeo show and did all the same tricks as the fella before me." She crossed the room and pulled Rarity to her hooves. "So Ah reckon you oughta get yourself some new tricks."
Rarity blinked. "I think you've lost me in the metaphor."
"Ah'm sayin’ you gotta make some new dresses. There's still time, ain't there?"
Rarity snorted. It wasn't ladylike, but she couldn't help it. It was just so ridiculous she had to laugh. "Make some more? Just like that? You think it’s that easy?” She laughed again, the sound dry and humorless. “It’s impossible! Simply impossible! Even if a bolt of inspiration for a new line was to hit me out of the blue right this minute, I don’t have any tools—”
“Wait,” Rainbow Dash interrupted, “you brought, like, a hundred bags on this trip and you're telling me none of them have emergency fashion supplies or something?”
Rarity shot her a glare for interrupting her building rant, but it lost some of its heat as she realized she was right. “I suppose I do have some basic tools. A few scissors, some pins, a basic kit for emergency repairs.” A small spark of hope started to rise in her chest before reality crushed it. “But it’s not enough. I don’t have my sewing machine, my loom, any of my other equipment. I know I’ve been tipping generously on this trip but I don’t have the kind of budget to go out and buy a new professional sewing machine at the drop of a hat.”
“Actually… hm…” Twilight’s muzzle scrunched in deep thought as she pulled out a quill and began to quickly write something on a notepad. "It may be a bit outmoded, but if we have enough scrap wood in storage I should be able to put together a simple loom." She paused for a moment as her eyes crossed, her focus no doubt shifting inward to however her woodworking ability expressed itself in her mind. "Yes. Yes, I definitely can. It's just a series of levers working in harmony."
"And I can rig up a sewing machine!" Pinkie offered eagerly. "It'll be a piece of cake thanks to my PhD in mechanical engineering."
Twilight’s quill froze and she frowned. "What? You don’t— oh right, you are as of recently.” She shook her head. “Pinkie, even if you have the equivalent knowledge of a doctorate, you can't just say you have one when you don't."
Pinkie shrugged. "Eh, tomato, tomahto, it's close enough. But a sewing machine's super simple anyway. You've got the uppy-downy bit where the needle goes, a sideways loopy-loop with the bobbin, a motor to run it, and a pedal to control it." She hopped backwards and landed in an armchair, hoof stroking her chin in a classic thinker pose. "But I'll need some more parts than we have here and I don't know where in the world I'd be able to buy a bicycle chain and an electric blender this time of day."
"Bit Pincher's Thrift and Vintage, seven blocks and some that way."
All eyes turned to Rainbow Dash. "What?" she asked. "One of my things guides me the best place to find materials I'm looking for. If you want a chain and a blender, that’s where you can get it. We passed it on the walk earlier." She twitched an ear. "You could also get them three blocks south, but the feeling's not as strong. I think maybe it's more expensive there."
That spark was back, burning in her chest. A persistent feeling of… possibility. But even if inspiration came, there was still one major hurdle to cross.
“Even if I had all the tools in the world, I don’t have the material. It took me weeks to get the Horadric Cube to make a fabric that was stretchy but not clingy, light but not flimsy, shimmering but not gaudy. Not to mention getting all that and the color too…”
Twilight gave her a sideways look. "You used a barely-understood magical artifact... to make better fabric?"
Rainbow Dash snorted. "It's not like we don't all use it for weird stuff all the time. Sometimes I throw all my garbage and junk mail in it just to see what happens."
"A couple of times I used it to make lunch," Fluttershy admitted.
"I use it to make change." Pinkie pulled her bitpurse out of her mane and opened it to reveal a number of odd-looking coins.
Almost on reflex, Rarity activated her analysis power. She didn't need to say anything to trigger it, but she'd found that using a keyword helped her focus. "Identify."
<<Replica Half-Bit Coins>>
Coins created by the Horadric Cube in the style of Equestrian legal tender, but containing exactly half the gold content. Not recognized by the Royal Committee of Coins and Stamps.
She vanished the informational box with a flicker of thought. "Pinkie, that's literally counterfeiting."
The smile dropped off the party mare's face. "Oh. Uh..." The bag vanished back into her mane as she mustered up a sheepish smile. "I may have a few purchases I need to take back when we get home."
“Pinkie's minor felonies aside,” Spike said, “even if you can’t use some fancy magic fabric, does that really matter? You never needed it before. Not to stock the boutique, not to qualify for this contest, not to start your own brand.” He stomped his foot and raised his voice as it filled with confidence. “Suri whatshername could use the fanciest fabric in the world and you could still make a better dress out of some doilies and a stained tablecloth. You don’t need fancy fabric when you’ve got raw talent! And the Warehouse is full of junk; there’s gotta be some kind of fabric you can use in there somewhere.”
With every word of encouragement he spoke, Rarity could feel the spark inside her surge and grow like an ember before a bellows. Doubt and defeatism shriveled before it. Her friends’ suggestions… had real potential. What had mere minutes ago felt impossible now seemed—dare she even think it?—quite doable. Reasonable, even. On her own, there was no way she could design, draft, and sew a half dozen new dresses in a single night, but with all of her friends working together, supported by the strength of their unique talents, it might just be possible. It’d be difficult—a rush job if ever there was one—but not nearly as impossible as she’d feared.
Besides, surely if Suri could sew a new line overnight, she could too.
As her confidence swelled, she took a moment to gather herself. Her friends, eager to help though they were, had no experience when it came to making clothes. They'd need a steady and experienced hoof at the helm to guide them in what to do.
She cleared her throat to gather their attention and answered their enthusiasm with a smile. "Alright, you've convinced me. I'll lose nothing for trying so let's show Suri ‘May-she-forever-wear-polyester” Polomare that I am not a mare to be trifled with!" A cheer went up at her declaration, raising spirits even further. “First things first, Pinkie... oh. She's already gone."
"Right out the window," Applejack chuckled.
"She's got the right idea. There's no time to waste." Rarity reached into her mane, as she'd seen Pinkie do many times before and felt for something that wasn’t there. She didn't question how the trick worked but she soon felt a Key in her hoof. "I think this hotel room's going to be a little small, so let's expand our operations."
Luckily, the en suite bathroom had a keyhole that soon opened into the familiar crystal room of the Hub.
A room which was, much to their surprise, occupied.
"Oh... hello," Moondancer said awkwardly as a noodle fell off her chopsticks and landed back in her cup ramen with a quiet plop. "I thought you said you wouldn't be back until Monday."
Things started moving quickly after that. Rarity soon found that the first step to getting started was sorting out who could properly do what. It’d be silly to ask somepony who’d never held a needle in their life to try and stitch vital pieces together.
The pre-sewing prep work was easy to parcel out. Her friends knew their unique abilities well enough to make it obvious who should do what to get things started, which left Rarity to handle the most daunting task alone: waiting for her muse to make an appearance.
For even if she had tools and material, it’d all be for naught without inspiration.
After nearly ten stressful minutes of thinking, it finally arrived in the form of Applejack,
"Found you some fabric," she announced as she trotted out of the warehouse with a long bolt of something blue balanced on her head. "It ain’t in the best shape, but there’s a lot so Ah reckon you can cut around the worst of it.”
<<Threadbare Lunar Tapestry>>
A tapestry depicting the iconography of Princess Luna that once hung in the halls of the Palace of the Two Sisters. Time and neglect has rendered it frayed and worn to the point of uselessness.
Like a monsoon coming to revive a parched desert, her mind flooded with new ideas. A few ponies had tested the fashionable waters with looks inspired by Princess Luna’s return, but no one had done a line with a historical twist to it! It was brilliant! Daring! Dare she say genius even!
…And with only a small, niggling moral quandary.
On one hoof, the tapestry was a priceless historic artifact. On the other, her own objective analysis confirmed that it was a stiff breeze away from becoming a pile of loose rags and thread. On the third hoof... she did have another two or three more in storage. If anything, being recycled as fashion would expose more ponies to it than if it remained a dusty artifact.
Three hooves beat one.
'I'm sure Princess Luna will forgive me.' Rarity thought as she committed herself to the plan.
"You'll need to divide that into smaller portions if you plan on using the Horadric Cube to repair it." Moondancer's voice brought Rarity out of her musings. The bespectacled unicorn held a marked length of string against the tapestry and nodded. "Eight pieces will suffice. If you'll carry it over, I'll measure out the exact quantity of originite needed to fuel the alchemical transmutation without overcharging and damaging the material.
"You're going to help?" Rarity asked, surprised. After the initial surprise, she’d rather forgotten that the mare was even there. She was just so… forgettable.
Moondancer rolled her eyes. "Even I can grasp the social faux pas of standing in the corner doing nothing while everyone else is collaborating." She adjusted her glasses. "Besides, this is a novel chance to study the interaction between several of your esoteric abilities."
“Alright then. I’m glad to have your help.” Moondancer nodded and guided Applejack towards the Hunter’s Workshop where the Cube once again resided, leaving Rarity alone again at the Hub’s crystal table. “How's that sewing machine coming along, Pinkie?"
Pinkie poked her head out of the door that led to the hotel room, a splotch of oily grease on her muzzle. “Super-duper! It’s taking a teensy bit longer than I thought. Dashie got me a whole bike to use, so it’s gonna be a ten-speed sewing machine!”
As if summoned, the door with Rainbow Dash's cutie mark glowed briefly before it opened to reveal the mare herself. She flew in blindly, her forelegs laden with a precarious pile of two by fours.
"Got the loom wood!" she yelled, “Where do you want it?"
"In here!" Twilight called from the hotel door. "I've transcribed a step-by-step guide for you to follow and Pinkie’s provided all the tools you’ll need."
"Wait, I'm building it now? I thought you were."
"I can make a perfect plan, but you're literally ten times faster than me."
"Heh. Can’t argue with that!"
Minutes and hours flowed into each other as Rarity fell into a familiar rhythm of creation, her tempo only disturbed when she had to redirect somepony to a new task or request some specific tool or material.
“Buttons!” Rarity cried as the vision in her mind clashed with the limits of reality. “What do we have for buttons?!”
“I think Fluttershy left a box of her badges in here somewhere,” Rainbow Dash yelled from the warehouse.
“Too big and too irregular! I need small and round!”
“I’ve got a chest of gems!” Spike offered. “Some of them have, uh, a few bites missing, but you can use whatever you need!”
She considered it, the image in her head twisting to visualize gems instead of gold. With the right colors, it could work. “Excellent! Bring me any pea-sized ones you have in white, black, and dark green as well as the Blood Gem setting tools from the other room.”
They weren’t exactly a well-oiled machine, but every pony played their part and pulled their weight, driven by the desire to help their friend. Pinkie cobbled together makeshift machines as Rainbow Dash brought spare parts from wherever her power directed her to get them. Applejack and Moondancer worked the Cube to turn junk into raw materials and raw materials into high quality materials (their hotel bill growing steadily as the sheets and curtains were sacrificed to the furnace of creation to become extra thread and lining fabric). Twilight cut and pinned and performed a dozen other simple but time-consuming tasks with her prodigious multitasking telekinesis while Spike kept track of which cuts went with which project. And Fluttershy…
A door opened into the Hub, the sound of a busy hotel kitchen coming through. “Snack break!” she sang out. “Time for a rest to restore your energy. I know it’s not much, but I’ve brought Spaghetti, Yoshi Cookies, and Special Shakes!”
Work quickly came to a halt as everyone gathered for the makeshift meal. Everyone, that is, except Rarity.
“Rares, come take a break!” Rainbow Dash called into the other room. “Food’s here!”
“I can’t.” The reply was more than a little terse as she continued to sew at a furious pace, the needle flashing like silver lightning in her grip. “I’m right in the middle of a very tricky stitch and I still have to cut dresses four and five and number three needs its lace redone and I’m running out of time!”
"Take a cookie," Fluttershy insisted, suddenly by her side and practically shoving the treat in her mouth. "Please. It'll help."
Rarity tried to protest through a mouthful of crumbs, but even as she did she felt a little of the stress disappear. All the little aches and pains that had started to accumulate from meticulous rushed work faded away and in seconds she felt as energized as if she's just awoken from a lovely nap. "Oh. I do feel better. Thank you."
“You’re welcome. You're not you when you're hungry.”
“But I am still running out of time. It’s nearly nine o’clock already!”
“Didn’t we have somethin’ we were supposed to do at nine?” Applejack asked through a mouthful of spaghetti.
Twilight gasped and she leapt out of her seat. “Hinny of the Hills! The show starts in less than fifteen minutes! If we run, we might just be able to make it!”
Panic welled up from the pit of Rarity’s stomach. She was making progress faster than she’d ever made before, but it wasn’t enough. She needed all hooves on deck to get it done; even if they just handled the simple details while she managed the complex work. A part of her also languished over missing the chance to see the hottest show on Bridleway, but even if all her friends went and abandoned her to see the show she’d have no choice but to keep working if she wanted any chance at salvaging her entry.
Fluttershy must have seen something of that fear in her eyes as she quickly spoke up. “Um, I might have an idea.” She half-flinched as all eyes turned to her. “I may be remembering wrong but… where are our seats in the theater?”
Rarity didn’t need to check the tickets to know. She’d only gotten the best. “It’s balcony seating. A private box.”
“Then I think I have a solution.”
The sewing machine—if one was feeling generous enough to count Pinkie’s monstrosity as such—was ugly. It was a piece of junk that took up a whole table and looked like it might fall apart at any moment. Rarity could swear some pieces were literally held together with chewing gum and paperclips.
It was... honestly just as good a sewing machine as the one back in the boutique. Even better in some ways. Who could have imagined that controlling its speed with the gear selector from a multi-speed bike would work so fluidly? Despite looking like a trainwreck, it laid down perfect stitches like a top-of-the-line high speed luxury liner.
The cat-like purring of its motor made a soothing backdrop to the chorus of impassioned singing and instruments that blasted through the door to her left. If she leaned back and craned her neck, she even had a decent view of the stage.
The view was briefly interrupted as Rainbow Dash passed through the barrier Twilight had cast that let the sound of music flow in but blocked the noise of machinery from escaping out.
"Intermission?"
"Nah, just a mushy love song. Need any help for the next five minutes?"
"Of course. My silver thread's almost run out."
"Got it." Dash sat herself down at the spinning wheel and brought it up to speed, her hooves and the wheel a blur as she worked six or seven times faster than any mortal pony. So fast it should have torn the wooden mechanism apart, and yet it didn't. "How's it coming? You gonna make it in time?"
"My presentation is going to be fueled more by coffee and Fluttershy's restoratives than sleep, but I'm on schedule.” She chuckled. “If I’m lucky, I might even get an hour’s rest when all is said and done.”
She eyed Dash with a glint in her eye that nearly made pegasus lose control of her spinning wheel. “Speaking of which, after this is all over you and I are going to have a long overdue discussion about your magical ability to detect sales. And we won’t be needing Twilight’s help to test it thoroughly.”
Rainbow Dash shuddered as she felt a terrible premonition of doom wash over her.
Rarity sagged as she cut and tied off the last dangling thread. “And… finished!”
She’d done it.
Six dresses. Designed, drafted, crafted, and completed in under a day. Her nerves felt like a razor-thin wire ready to snap and her head was filled with cotton batting, but the great work was complete.
Now all she had to do was get them delivered to the contest hall and rehearse her spiel about their design and inspiration.
…a monologue she needed to rewrite from scratch now since her prepared speech was centrally focused on her old fabric.
She glanced to the window where the sun was just beginning to peek between the skyscrapers and turn the silver buildings golden-orange, then towards the pile of scrap fabric where all her assistants had, one-by-one, succumbed to exhaustion and instinctively collapsed into a protective cuddle.
The speech could wait. Inspiration always struck hotter in the heat of the moment. She ambled over to the pile and found a nook between Applejack and Fluttershy. Just a moment’s repose to refresh herself. Ten minutes, no more. Certainly less than an hour…
As she dozed off, she almost entirely missed the tingling sensation of some new ability arriving, but the feeling soon passed as she slipped away into the land of dreams.
"The inspiration for this line comes from courtwear in the late-unification era. It was a turbulent time in history rife with social and political change; something I believe we can see reflected in society today. As keen-eyed observers will note, the palette is a direct homage to Princess Luna, who herself acts as a bridge across history, connecting the past to the present much as these modernizations of antique styles do."
Soft applause from the panelists and judges, timed so their claps wouldn't be lost beneath the steady pulsing beat of the runway music. Some louder and less-polite clapping came from her friends in the audience (who all looked as tired as she felt but lacked the makeup skills to mask it). Their enthusiasm buoyed her spirits beyond even the approving noises of the panel.
It was a fine speech. Doubly so for having been partially thrown together in the last hour during pre-show set-up (the larger part being made up on the spot). It was just the sort of pseudo-philosophical fluff that high-level fashion moguls loved to hear to justify reviving an old-fashioned style with a daring modern cut.
And it'd remain impressive so long as nopony pointed out her bluff. While the fabric was genuinely a thousand years old, records from that long ago were sparse and records of their fashion sense even rarer. So unless one of the princesses who’d lived through it decided to call her out for historical inaccuracy... who was to say that ponies a thousand years ago didn't use the same patterns on both their tapestries and their dresses?
But one could forgive a few creative liberties with history when the models looked absolutely gorgeous in her creations as they strutted down the runway.
Blue and black was the central theme of the line, with accents in silver and dark green. Bodices that clung to the chest with exaggerated shoulders with sweeping lines and wide panels to emphasize the intricate embroidery that covered every square inch. Decorative buttons twinkled in the spotlights like stars in the night sky to draw the eye exactly where she wanted it to go.
Were high collars out of fashion? Only until some daring seamstress brought them back!
The judges seemed to agree, if their hushed conversations were any indication.
Minutes or hours later (how funny time became where your veins pumped coffee instead of blood) she found herself backstage with the other designers as Prim Hemline and the rest of the judging panel made their deliberations.
The air was thick with tension, though one mare in particular seemed unconcerned with it all.
"You all can just go home you know, m'kay?" Suri Polomare said with the kind of confidence usually reserved for ponies who already had a medal around their necks. "It's pretty obvious who they're gonna pick so you might as well all leave now and save yourselves the heartbreak."
No one moved (aside from the squirming of the mare's own assistant, Coco Pommel; a nervous waif of a pony who looked like she could give Fluttershy a run for her money in a hide-behind-your-mane contest).
"As for you," Suri turned her knife-like gaze onto Rarity. "I don't know what kind of trick you were trying to pull, but it won't work."
“Trick?” she asked. “What trick?”
“Don’t try to feign ignorance, the genuine article suits you better. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Baiting me with that fabric then pulling out a whole new line of dresses?” She laughed, a high and cruel noise that turned into a snort halfway through. “A real amateur’s attempt to play the game.”
Rarity ignored the barb. “I haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about. Perhaps I was merely stuck with a bolt of inspiration that I simply had to bring to life immediately.”
“Puh-lease. Six dresses from scratch, in one night? Impossible. You had those prepared beforehand. Just admit it, m'kay?”
“No tricks here. Everything I put on that catwalk was made in the past twenty-four hours. Just the product of a long night, a lot of coffee, and a few wonderful friends who graciously gave up their vacation to lend me a helping hoof.”
Coco glanced up with an odd look of surprise in her eyes as Suri snorted. "Ahuh. ‘Friends’. Unpaid interns, more like. I should have guessed.”
“Certainly not!” Rarity snapped. Accusing her of subterfuge was one thing, but to insult her friends was a step too far. “I was treating them to a well-deserved holiday when they saw I needed help and offered to aid in any way they could. I couldn’t have done it without them and I couldn’t ask for more generous friends.”
Despite her stirring speech, Suri’s only response was to smirk. “Wow. So that’s how low you’re willing to scrape, huh? Can't make dresses on your own, can't even get proper trained help.” She tittered (which once more turned into a snort that got stuck in her throat) before heading towards the door. “I’ll make sure to wave at you from the podium when Prim hands me the grand prize. Coco! Follow!”
She exited swiftly, her assistant stealing apologetic glances back with every few steps as she followed behind.
“I wouldn’t underestimate my friends’ abilities,” Rarity murmured to the Suri-shaped hole in the atmosphere as the other contestants quietly began to converse with one another. “They may not be classically trained, but they still bring more talent to the designing table than you can possibly imagine.”
Rarity slept soundly on the train ride back to Ponyville. The complimentary five-star restaurant luncheon in her belly made for an excellent soporific, as did the comforting weight of her pocket rolodex now heavy with the personal contact information for five of the biggest names in fashion (and one shy newcomer who was cautiously interested in new employment) .
And while the giant novelty check didn't make an ideal blanket, she wasn’t about to complain.