Filetages Fatidique et Fleurs de Soie

by Indulgence

L'art de la Robe

No, that wouldn’t work.

A flurry of snowy papers flew away from her, loosed towards their floor-bound kin settled in drifts about the futon. All around was a semicircle of paper, forming a white halo about her seated form, surveying her kingdom and finding it wanting.

No, that wouldn’t work either.

A further cascade followed the first, cast aside as unworthy without any hesitation. Her court of mannequins looked on wordlessly, all dressed to impress but unhelpfully silent in their council, gaps in their insufficient ranks filled in by chairs pressed into service from the apartment’s kitchen.

No, too much.

The last of the sheets fell as one, collectively failing in their petitions for her favour. Her judgements were final, converting her throne room into a killing field, the mass grave at its centre filled with the bodies of those she once called her subjects, none able to live up to her now heightened expectations.

No, not enough.

‘For buck’s sake!’ Coco rose sharply from her throne, spitting away her words with her pencil, striking her head with a forehoof in annoyance. ‘Think! Why can’t you just think?!’ she exclaimed aloud to nopony in existence, exasperation forcing the speech from her mouth. She strode into the room’s chaotic epicentre, her steps quickly turning to pacing, first back and forth and then changing to circles of the well-littered space, treading a line between those vassals she had laid low and the cordon of her faceless retinue beyond. In what rapidly became repetitive circuits her gaze panned from side to side, aiming to view each article she passed then quickly repassed from every possible angle.

None of these are good enough. What’s missing? There has to be something, you’ve just got to find it.

Coco stopped before the first of her blank-faced courtiers, fabric adornments coming impressively close to giving the lifeless figure a form of personality. She stared down the blank eyeless visage, stare moving onward over its body, interrogating every inch of its still form for answers. None were forthcoming however. She cast her eyes across the mannequin, tracing from its top-hatted crown, the headgear itself set with a white ribbon holding in place a fan of black and white feathers, to its equally dichotomously pied waistcoat, flowing into the same starkly colourless stripes of a skirt covering its hind section. Additional embellishments stood out from this two tone scheme, like the antique silver of a watch chain, hanging semi-loosely from the waistcoat’s pockets, or its multiple chain-link bracelets, both of which were set with bone-like metal charms. They were pretty simple, but being her first real attempts at jewellery they were still objects of pride, even if that did count for exactly squat right now as she moved on to the next in the line-up.

It can’t be that stark.

Unfortunately "stark", or else "blatant" or "loud", would have all also been perfectly permissible descriptors summing up her new object of questioning. In spite of largely hiding the mock pony which lay beneath it, the long hooded cloak of this second outfit stood out as much as the first, or maybe even more so, in that it was made of a vivid crimson and black tiger-striped fabric. A dark chord neatly held the cape about the mannequin’s neck, woven strands ending in pointed cone-shaped beads. Drawing back the hood revealed a velvet inner lining of a deeper scarlet than the exterior, leaving it still comfortable to wear in spite of its weight, as well as a pair of long earrings. Such accoutrements remained an oddity in Equestria, making the outfit an even louder ensemble, but these went further than most, each consisting of an upper and a lower ear clip bound together by a trio of differently lengthed chains. From the bottom of the lowest row of links hung shined red corral pieces like stalactites in the same geometric style to those on the ends of the cloak’s ties. Again her jewellery was rather basic, but in not being delicate it added a sharpened attitude or edge.

It shouldn’t either be a disguise or too in your face.

A third figure now awaited her investigations, each adding to her wall of thoughts but none drawing out a conclusion. The view returned to being more monochromatic, filled by a granite grey tailcoat with a frilled black silk shirt beneath it, inner shadow also accented by a folded handkerchief just emerging from a front pocket and an equally jet black rose set in a buttonhole. The coat was still bright however, light glittering from it reflected by box studding bordering a large exploding graphic stitched across its back, depicting a comic book-like ‘Pow!’ in a jagged bubble, and run around its collar’s edges. Neither traditionally neat nor too aggressively alternative, it walked a fine knife edge between the two, each contrary facet acting to highlight the other.

She’d look bloody good in a suit, but it needs to be more than that. More can be done with a dress.

‘Why’s this so hard?’ None of the other outfits had proved such a resistant challenge, a diverse collection of designs being easy to choose in part for variety and dependent upon what materials she had available, but this was different. Of course the other pieces had also been helped by Fleur’s guiding hoof, adding a second pair of decisive eyes, with which for this task she was necessarily without. Thus far the unicorn had been entirely true to her word, leaving Coco feeling a tad guilty for the doubts she had retained even after gleefully agreeing to her rough plan, somehow conjuring a venue at the Manefare Hotel and a couple of fellow models from seemingly nowhere. They would still need a few more to pull it off and the guest list remained up in the air, but nonetheless Fleur had been amazing. More than these logistical miracles however she had generously given her the chance to create, to do what she truly loved, and now Coco was desperate to give back some small something in return. It was to this end that her mind was now struggling, having completed the rest of the collection for the coming show, nothing bar perfection being an adequate answer.

Coco turned her back on her court, departing for the privy chamber of her workroom. It was still cramped but at least there was now some small room for manoeuvre, with a fair amount of its previous contents put into service, allowing her easy access to her preferred chair (the sole remaining unused seat in the apartment), into which she let herself slump. She reached forward with both hooves, allowing her back to arch and her neck to crack as she did so, stretching out across the desk. Pushing aside the few remaining thread spools which littered its surface, she reached a stack of paper on its far side, grasp snaking back to deposit a blank canvas before her.

So to recap: something that’s enough to be special, but nothing so much as to be a ‘disguise’, that’s refined enough to be elegant and yet simply beautiful.

‘You make it sound so simple!’ she thought, scanning across the table for a pencil.

It doesn’t help that no matter what you put together it will just be surplus.

This was true, Fleur having absolutely no need of any adornment, adding an extra hurdle to her efforts, unwilling to cover any of her unicorn subject’s natural beauty. At the same time she wanted anything she made to be personal, as if she were trying to channel Fleur herself into the material, for the fabric to not just look good but to speak.

No small feat, particularly bearing in mind you can’t even say what you want it to in reality.

Coco sighed, pulling open each of the desk’s drawers in turn, still searching for an elusive drawing implement. The third drawer finally yielded what she sought, but alongside it she was surprised by the abandoned pieces of a studded choker: Fleur’s studded choker. ‘Oh buck.’ She had entirely forgotten about it, having planned to set about fixing the item of jewellery (broken by its then inebriated owner in her haste to discard it) now many days previous. ‘Well, at least that’s something I can actually get on with’ she considered, laying out the various parts in front of her. The buckle which held the collar together was a relatively easy fix, the holes which it threaded into being overly stressed from rough removal, although this would entail replacing it. Its studs also remained intact and she set about mending what she could. The far greater issue was however the disappearance of the padlock shaped charm which had once decorated its front, leaving the choker’s hoop that had held it markedly empty, and she already knew that she had nothing like it in her supplies to replace it with. Her mind moved fluidly with her hooves, hauling over her bits box for perusal whilst she affixed a more delicate clasp to the spiked collar.

---

Finished.

Coco sat back surveying her hoofiwork, stretching out the kinks which had developed in her spine. Now hanging from the front of the choker was a purple garnet heart, intricately wrapped in a webbing of silver wire which branched around the shined stone like rose vines, tiny thorns shooting off at intervals adding to the effect.

Not bad.

Her pause was only brief however; thoughts moving swiftly back to the blank slate laid out awaiting use. She set the jewellery to one side, its new charm still in view, and let the lines flow outward, spilled from her pencil across the sheet.

Author's Note:

Title: The Art of the Dress (French)