Dingling...
At Morgan Tailor Shop on Ross Avenue, an old man with greying hair heard the ringing of the bell, lifted his head, and assessed the two people and a cat entering from the main door with his cloudy eyes.
"Sir, miss, welcome to Morgan Tailor Shop."
The middle-aged woman, who was tidying up the racks, quickly approached with a gentle smile on her lips, "May I ask if you're here to pick up clothes or to order custom clothing?"
"I want to order a few skirts for a girl to wear."
Marvin took off his hat and explained his purpose directly, "Two sets for each season: spring, summer, autumn, and winter."
Upon hearing this, the middle-aged woman's face lit up with joy. A customer ordering eight sets of clothing right off the bat was a big client!
At Morgan Tailor Shop, they always upheld the practice of pure handcraftsmanship, creating garments tailored to the customer's measurements, shoulder width, and sleeve length, worlds apart from the standard sizes produced by clothing factories, exclusively catering to the wealthy!
Of course...
In terms of price, they were not something the average person could afford.
"Please sit down, please take a seat!"
The middle-aged woman led Marvin to the seating area and served two cups of hot tea before asking, "May I know how to address you, sir?"
"Marvin Enders."
"Mr. Marvin then, please take a look..."
The middle-aged woman pulled out a thick hardcover binder from nowhere, spread it on the table, inside were swatches of various fabrics.
"We at Morgan Tailor Shop use only the best quality materials, including wool, alpaca, mohair, woven-gold cotton, cotton flannel, patterned silk chiffon, and so on..."
Glancing at the handmade pure wool coat Marvin was wearing, the middle-aged woman roughly estimated his taste and pointed to a smooth, glossy fabric, "I highly recommend this patterned silk chiffon. It's imported from overseas, thin and soft to the touch, available in a variety of colors. Not only is it comfortable to wear, but it's also very elegant. Whether attending an evening event or going out, it's a very fitting and prestigious choice."
"Nia, what do you think?"
Marvin gave the choice to Yuniya.
Yuniya leaned over the table, looking left and right, touching each fabric in turn but couldn't make up her mind, "They all feel so comfortable... it's so hard to choose... Dad, you pick!"
The most fashionable at the moment was still pure wool fabric, whose dense wool not only could fend off the cold wind but also resist the erosion of rain. By comparison...
Patterned silk chiffon was slightly less practical.
But it was beautiful.
"For winter outerwear, use woven-gold cotton paired with wool, for underwear use wool flannel. For summer outerwear, use plain weave fine cloth, and for underwear pair with thin cotton fabric."
In front of the middle-aged woman's astonished look, Marvin spoke eloquently, "As for the patterned silk chiffon you recommend, I think since your shop can offer such a thing, you must also have higher-quality brocade. Please make a set of evening gowns with it, not too bright to avoid overshadowing, hmm... white will be fine."
"Ah... alright, I understand."
The middle-aged woman felt that all her prepared talks had become useless, her rhythm completely disrupted. She stood up, somewhat bewildered, "Then let's move on to the styles..."
The racks were adorned with sets of gorgeous clothing, with women's dresses on the left and men's formal attire on the right. The distinction between the two was clear and their characteristics self-evident.
These were not for sale, only displayed for customers as demonstrations, and the actual clothes would take some time to be ready.
Marvin looked around, reviewing the styles on the racks, and shook his head, disappointed.
"Are they not to your satisfaction?" the middle-aged woman asked anxiously.
"These styles don't quite match my aesthetic."
The fashion of this era was overly complicated, too concerned with extravagance, dazzling to look at but losing the beauty of simplicity.
What Marvin found unacceptable was that it could take fifteen to twenty minutes or even longer to don a complete set of everyday clothing!
And that didn't even include the time for washing up and makeup...
If he bought a few sets of such clothes for Yuniya, what if there was an emergency one day? Wouldn't it cause a delay?
Overall, Marvin preferred modern clothing styles, not only because they were convenient to wear but also because they were pleasing to the eye...
"Then what kind of clothes would you like?"
The white-haired old man came from behind the sewing machine, holding a pipe in his hand, and spoke calmly, "Since you're not satisfied with the styles I designed, you must have some insight. I'm all ears."
"Father..."
Seeing the elder question, the middle-aged woman's face changed slightly, wanting to say something in protest.
"Megan, this doesn't concern you anymore, go downstairs."
"...Yes, father."
After the middle-aged woman entered the back room, the old man took a puff of his pipe. Behind his gold-rimmed glasses, his gaze was as sharp as a hawk's.
He...
Suspected that the young man before him had come to challenge his shop!
"It would be presumptuous to speak of high insight, but I do have some understanding of clothing," Marvin said with a smile, "Because my mother works in the fashion design industry, I've been influenced by her and know a bit about it."
As expected, he had come to challenge!
The white-haired old man's heart sank, and he spoke with a stern face, "What kind of styles has your mother designed? In what city are they popular? What achievements has she made?"
"I'm not here to cause trouble, old man," Marvin said, putting away his smile. "I genuinely want to order some dresses for my daughter, but I don't like those mass-produced styles, so I had to find a tailor famous far and wide to make them by hand."
The white-haired old man's expression softened slightly, "How can those ready-to-wear shops compare with hand-tailored ones? The clothes they design are aimed at the general public, lacking personalized features. No matter how many years pass, the hand-tailoring industry will never vanish!"
"I quite agree with you."
Marvin nodded, "I also believe that only a top-notch tailor can make the styles I desire."
"Isn't your mother a tailor? Why not ask her?"
"Because I'll never see her again...."
The white-haired old man paused, let out a long sigh, and the last bit of hostility dissipated, "Birth, aging, sickness, death—these are all common. There's no hurdle in the world that can't be overcome.... Did you bring your mother's designs? Let me see them."
"There are no designs," Marvin said, spreading his hands. "But I can draw a simple sketch for you."
"A sketch will do."
The white-haired old man led Marvin to his work table, took out a roll of blank stiff paper from a drawer, and casually tossed a half-pencil and a card gauge in front of Marvin.
"Draw."
Picking up the pencil, Marvin recalled the image in his mind, then drew a cross as the framework for the figure, and quickly sketched out a knee-length dress following the image in his memory.
The white-haired old man watched his actions intently. When the dress was half drawn, he furrowed his brows but didn't interrupt Marvin until he had finished drawing. Then he asked with confusion, "Why are you drawing an underskirt to wear inside?"
"This isn't an underskirt, but a very ordinary outer garment."
"..."
The old man fell silent, puffing on his pipe, and after a long while, he finally spoke, "A very unique idea... truly unique, a very bold innovation... though, isn't the waist of the dress a little too low?"
"I find that a waistband up at the chest is too high, not relaxed enough. It's very uncomfortable to wear."
"You've worn women's dresses?"
"I have had the... misfortune of being forced to wear them a few times, but that's not the point, is it?"
"Hmm, indeed, not the point... A dress with too low a waist will hinder a woman's movements, and if the clothing is too thin, the outlines of a tight corset will be revealed."
"So you've also worn women's dresses, old man?"
"Hey... that's in the past, best left unmentioned."
Looking at each other, Marvin and the white-haired old man both cracked a smile, sharing a feeling like comrades in difficulty.
"Back to the subject, old man, to tell you the truth, I don't plan to let Nia wear tight corsets. Those things are too anti-human," Marvin said.
"Not wearing a tight corset?"
The white-haired old man raised his eyebrows in astonishment and said, "Without a corset, wouldn't the waist look very thick? That goes against the most fashionable styles in the industry!"
"Fashion is decided by designers, and clothing design is art, and art should be about bold assumptions, bold practices!"
Marvin spoke emphatically, "You, old man, have worn tight corsets, you know how uncomfortable they are. Many women force themselves into them, and once they get used to tight corsets, it becomes difficult to take them off... As for the current popular styles in the fashion world, it's precisely because of the corsets that there have been no breakthroughs in many years!"
"In other words..."
"Tight corsets restrict not only women's activities but also your creative space as an artist, old man! Without corsets, a tailor master like you should design all kinds of novel styles! It's not impossible to make a name for yourself in history!"
Puffing on his pipe more rapidly, the white-haired old man listened to Marvin's persuasive words, his eyes flickering non-stop, seemingly contemplating the feasibility of the plan.
Leaving a name in history!
These four words hit the old man's heart like a sledgehammer. As a master tailor, he had dedicated his life to the clothing industry; how could he not want to advance further and sit shoulder-to-shoulder with the masters of the fashion world?
"If this plan fails, I might become utterly disgraced," the old man said hesitantly, with the pale smoke curling up. "It's too risky... too risky..."
"This is not risky."
Marvin said with a smile, "As long as you, old man, design clothes similar to these after you've designed them, get a few elite medics to write numerous papers, widely publicize the harms of tight corsets in newspapers, then hire a top celebrity from the fashion world to try on your clothes and give a high appraisal, this will surely succeed! By that time, you'll be the brightest old star in the fashion world!"
"Hiss..."
The old man looked at Marvin with uncertainty, "Who exactly are you, boy? You're definitely not just a tailor!"
"I'm just an ordinary Priest of the Church of Truth," Marvin smiled faintly. "You needn't worry about the publicity; I'll take full charge of it and ensure it's foolproof. You just need to design more variations of clothing based on this sketch I've drawn and wait to become famous."
"There's no such thing as free lunch falling from the sky, so tell me, what exactly do you want to get out of this?"
"After it's done, I want 50% of the shares in this tailor shop, and I get clothes for free when I shop here," Marvin said. "Please don't be quick to reject it. I can guarantee that once you become famous, you will gain far more than you have now—fame, fortune, everything!"
"You clever boy, you're not here to order clothes, you're here to make money!"
"You could say that, but it's a mutually beneficial deal, right?"
Marvin spit in his palm and extended it towards the old man, asking with a grin, "Deal or no deal?"
"...The first time I saw you, I knew you were no ordinary person... Alright, I'll take the gamble!"
The white-haired old man also spat in his palm and grabbed Marvin's hand firmly, saying fiercely:
"Deal!"