The Dress (14 page)

Lily grabbed a pencil from her desktop and some paper from the printer tray and began to sketch. Although she hadn't done anything like this since her college show, she found that she was as fluid, as fast and as confident a sketcher as she had been as a student. Within a few minutes the floor at her feet was scattered with dozens of drawings. In simple, sweeping lines Lily tried to capture the candy-floss lightness of Joy's voluminous skirt, the neat curve of her torso, the delicate detailing of the lace on the bodice – discarding and re-sketching, over and over again.

When she had a drawing she was more or less satisfied with, Lily went to the ‘untouchable' storage cupboard in her hallway. She pulled out old coats, wellingtons, a broken vacuum cleaner and numerous bags of lightbulbs and cleaning fluids until, finally, at the very back, she found the dressmaker's dummy her parents had bought for her fifteenth birthday. Next to it was an old bag of muslin strips that Lily had used to make a toile in college. Amazed it was still there, she stuck her head into the bag and sniffed. A bit musty – not surprising after nearly ten years – but usable.

Lily took the bag, tucked the dummy under her arm and ran up the stairs. She pushed back some clothes rails, put the dummy in the middle of the room and looked at her drawing. This would be no sew-along-the-seams factory garment, it was going to be like the original, a full couture gown. She would have to make a bodice, and use yards of fabric on the train alone. She would have to learn about beading, appliqué and embroidery – things she had never done before. Before she let the magnitude of it all sink in, Lily reached for the sewing basket she always had to hand. As she picked up her first strip of muslin and pinned it across the torso of the worn, beige dummy a thrill of delight seemed to shoot through her fingers. Like falling in love, the adventurous feeling that something completely new was about to happen.

Lily stood with a mouthful of pins, pasting fabric strips to her dummy and it occurred to her that she was actually pretty broke at the moment. If she wanted to do anything more than simply fiddle around with muslin over the coming days, she knew she would need to get her hands on some extra cash. She could try and sell some of her clothes, but that would take up time, loading pictures up on the website and eBay with no guarantees. The alternative was a lengthy trip to a trade fair. Like a flashlight going off, Lily remembered Gareth talking about his upcoming trip to Birmingham. She picked up her phone and rang his number.

‘How do you fancy selling some frocks for me?'

‘Erm...' Gareth sounded taken aback. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea. ‘Well, I don't really have a big market for vintage clothes in the shop, apart from you.'

‘Ah, right. I was just thinking, if you were going up to Birmingham anyway, you might take some of my good pieces around to some dealers for me. Only I need the cash...'

‘Oh sure, sure. No problem.'

‘...And, of course, I'll give you a cut. You just think about how much.'

‘No problem, no problem. Just drop them in anytime today.'

Lily spent the rest of the afternoon going through her very best pieces; the ones that would raise her the most cash. The 1950s duchesse satin tulip shape Nina Ricci skirt in perfect condition; a green Donegal tweed suit by Sybil Connolly from the 60s. These were her treasures. She always intended to sell them on but often, too often, she fell in love and clung onto them. Her prize possession was a Chanel LBD dating back to the 1940s. Lily unzipped the bag and looked inside at the delicate silk dress, slightly greying with age but nonetheless, a valuable collector's piece. She loved this dress more than any other. She had found it in a thrift shop in Paris just after she graduated and it had cost Lily her entire savings. However, if she wanted to make this dress, she would have to part with some of her own, so she sat down at her computer and printed out a reserve price list for Gareth.

When she arrived up at the shop with armloads of heavy bags, Gareth came out to help her.

‘I've done a reserve price list for the couture stuff,' she said, ‘then put in a few smaller pieces that you might sell through the shop? I thought 10 per cent for you... Is that OK?'

Gareth nodded. He wanted to say he would do it for nothing if she'd go out to dinner with him, or to the pictures, or... just where
did
an ordinary bloke like him take a sophisticated goddess like Lily Fitzpatrick? On the plus side, she had reached out and asked for his help. Lily must not think he was a complete loser after all.

As she handed over the Chanel bag she said, ‘This one is really special. It feels like I am handing you my life, Gareth. Be gentle with it,' giving him real hope, before adding, ‘Thanks – you're a real friend.'

‘I'll call you,' she said, running out of the door.

Back in the apartment Lily felt better, freer. Out with the old-old and in with the new-old – although it would take weeks for that sales money to come through and she needed something sooner.

So she rang Sally.

‘I need cash.'

‘What for?'

‘A dress.'

‘Of course, because you don't have enough dresses.'

‘Ha, ha.'

‘Well, it just so happens I need an assistant to press and steam a mountain of cheap, nasty catalogue clothes from Scott's budget range. Although, I should warn you, the last one died of boredom.'

Sally picked Lily up at 7.30 a.m. the next morning and they drove bleary-eyed through the London rush hour traffic picking up six boxes of ‘catalogue tat' on their way, from the client's offices in Great Portland Street.

As they drove, Lily told Sally about The Dress and Sally told her she was mad.

‘You know, Lily, if you want to get back to designing there are better ways than just copying some old frock.'

‘Firstly, I don't want to go back to designing, and secondly, it's not just some old frock. It's an amazing couture vintage gown that belonged to my great-aunt. In America. Have you not been listening to a word I've been telling you?'

‘Of course I have. I am delighted you have a dead great-aunt...'

‘...and a cousin.'

‘...and a live cousin – well done you. I just want to know, what's the point?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Why are you making this dress? What are you going to do with it?'

‘There is no point. I just want to do it for the sake of it. I see lots of beautiful clothes all the time but now I just want to make something really beautiful myself. Is that so weird?'

‘Yes, it is weird. I just wish—'

‘Don't say it.'

‘I just wish you would stop being so obsessed with dusty old clobber and get back to designing your own stuff.'

‘There it is. The Best Friend Nag.'

Sally shook her head. ‘You lack ambition, Lily Fitzpatrick.'

‘Thank you,' she replied, smiling, ‘and you lack soul...'

‘...and scruples. Especially when it comes to looking out for my BF.'

‘Oh, but Sal, this dress is so special, wait until you see it. The problem is I'm going to need to make some more cash. There's yards of good silk on the train, tonnes of beads and stuff.'

‘I'll see if I can get you a bit more work. There's a trip to Miami coming up, I might be able to get you a freelance gig – leave it with me.'

The studio complex was in a large industrial estate in Sutton but once inside the state-of-the-art equipped studio was huge. There was a fully catered canteen area, vast white walls and soft grey sofas with various models and helpers lounging across them. It was as glamorous and airy and as buzzy as a film set.

Fashion styling, Lily knew, was one of the most overrated jobs in the fashion world. Most of it was about planning and administration with occasional bursts of fun but really, like any job, it depended on the people you were working with. Luckily, Sally always pulled together a good team.

‘Stick to the beige and the browns today, Justine...' Sally advised the make-up artist. They were having to re-do half of yesterday's shots. They had been so bored that Sally had allowed Justine to do this season's solid Day-Glo eye make-up on the model and the client had freaked.

‘Can I grink ni gee yet?'

‘Jesus, don't
talk
Sharon,' Justine cried, ‘not while I am doing your lips.'

‘Can I drink my tea yet?'

Sharon was an Amazonian brunette from Wisconsin, one of America's most successful plus-size models, with full lips, creamy, flawless skin and glossy, curled hair down to her elbows. Her fee was taking up the bulk of the budget on this job, which is why they had to shoot about two hundred outfits in nine days, on an industrial estate in Sutton instead of on the streets of Paris, or in that capital of all catalogue shoots, Miami. At a European size 10–12 she wasn't exactly enormous, but certainly larger than the pick-thin catwalk girls.

Justine picked up a tissue to wipe the stray gloss then poked the model across the chin with a blusher brush. Briefly released from the make-up artist's grip, Sharon snatched a bite of the croissant that Sally had left lying on the make-up station.

Sally glowered. ‘Bloody plus-size models, you're like Hoovers. At least with the anorexic girls the rest of us never starve.'

‘Doesn't pay to be too thin,' Sharon said. ‘The fashion girls may get all the high-end mags but catalogue is where the money is and besides, nobody wants to have sex with them.'

‘Too skinny,' said Sally.

‘Too grumpy 'cos they never eat.'

‘Too insecure –
bo-ring
,' said Sharon, breaking out of her lipstick prison again.

‘Jesus, woman,' Justine screamed. ‘You'd think you'd never had your make-up done before!'

Sally was holding up a wrap dress in an outrageously large size fourteen. ‘I hope this bloody fits because we've got to do it in six colour ways.'

‘Can't they just Photoshop it into different colours?' Lily asked.

‘Apparently not, tech genius, so get steaming,' Sally said, throwing half a dozen multi-coloured nylon-mix dresses in her direction.

For the next six hours they worked flat out, photographing Sharon in no fewer than fifty different garments against a series of plain backdrops, strolling, smiling, and posing.

‘Imagine you're in Paris, doll,' the photographer Simon said.

‘Yeah,' Sally said, ‘'cos they're going to drop Paris into the background on the computer – which is, of course, great for us!'

‘Did you get confirmation of the Cool Curves brochure through yet? It's a shoot in Miami, isn't it?' Justine asked.

Simon yelled, ‘
Powder!
' and she hurried over to run her brush across Sharon's face.

‘No,' Sally said, holding a skirt open for Sharon to step straight into after she had torn off the dress she had just been photographed in, ‘but you can talk to Lily about that – she's at the top of Jack Scott's hit list.'

‘Lucky you,' Justine said, as Sharon struggled to get her long limbs through the arms of a white blouse without getting make-up on the collar.

‘Can I have a dressed model
now
please?!' Simon pleaded. ‘We are twenty shots behind today... and I am
not
running this into next week!'

The shoot did run over so the banter and the bitching carried on into early evening. By nine o'clock only Sally and Lily were left in the deserted studios, folding up the clothes, bagging them and putting them all back into their boxes.

‘Thank God this job is over,' Sally said flicking the remaining pile of unfolded clothes. ‘You coming for a drink?'

Lily folded the flaps over on the last box and picked up the masking tape gun. ‘No I'm going to get home and do a bit of work.'

Sally looked at her. ‘On this dress?'

Lily nodded. ‘I know you think I'm crazy...'

‘I just worry about you, Lils. It's so soon after losing Joe and, well, I don't want you getting all hung up on something that won't pay off.'

‘Not everything is about money, Sally,' Lily said, then realized how stupid that sounded, given that she had rung Sally begging for work.

They hugged goodbye but for the rest of the evening Lily felt annoyed at Sally for not being more supportive.

*

The following day Zac skyped Lily again, but this time it was from his mother's house. Imogen was a plain, sturdy-looking woman in her fifties with grey, un-styled hair and huge glasses, the antithesis of her own elegant mother and camp, on-trend son. She came across as warm and friendly and was obviously really happy to meet a relative, even such a distant one by marriage.

‘We have very little evidence of my Mom's life before she met Pops,' she said. ‘We only know she was married to your great-uncle, Frank Fitzpatrick, from the magazine Zac found. Seems she was quite a socialite in her heyday but she kept all that under wraps when I was growing up.' Her voice trailed off, sad at the memory of her mother. ‘It means such a lot to meet you, Lily. I'm so sorry about your grandaddy. I do so hope we can stay in touch.'

A few minutes after the call Imogen emailed through the interview with Honor Conlon from the trade drapery magazine. Lily printed it off and was excited to see it was a somewhat technical account of how The Dress had been made; the bodice structure, the button holes, the finer details of the dressmaking process were all here. However, as she read through Lily started to realize this was also, in effect, her shopping list. Twenty-five yards of specially-commissioned shot silk taffeta commissioned from Lyon, twenty pounds of crystals and pearls, ten yards of Carrickmacross Lace, and 100 yards of dyed silk tulle to give the ‘cloud' effect to the billowing dress. Not to mention the hours of work by the skilled ‘petite mains' who did the specialized embroidery and beading. Lily knew enough about sourcing vintage lace and silk to realize that these notions were all way above her pay grade. It was clear too, from the interview with Honor, that none of these elements could be skimped on while remaining true to the original design. In addition she would need time. It had taken Honor Conlon three months to make The Dress, but if Lily had to do all of the petite mains work herself, it could take her forever.