Sakura Week day 6.
- ethereal, an AU.
note: Happy Birthday to our queen! May or may not continue this as a multi-chapter/three-shot/anthology but stay tuned. Love love,
Sakura Uchiha neé Haruno, a wife, mother, designer, brand ambassador, supermodel, businesswoman...
One midsummer eve about a month ago, I rang the buzzer of a wedding-cake white Konoha Park mansion. The lady of the house, barefoot in a floral-print dress she wore not too long ago in front of national T.V., opened the door and politely held out her hand for me to shake. "Hello! My mama said you were coming," she says. "She didn't tell me you were a boy. Bubbles-chan doesn't like boys except for my papa." She pointed to the frown on the green dinosaur's face, mimicking it with her own little pout. And with that, Uchiha Sarada, three, pushed the lilac stroller with a slight huff and led the way into the sitting room.
I do not really start my interviews this way. But Uchiha Sakura neé Haruno is far from your average fashion designer. She, unlike her eccentric co-artists, is more of a multitasking modern woman, not only designing clothes exhibited at the Milan Fashion Show, but walking it herself… taking her adorable three-year-old with her.
Which is how I come to be in the Uchiha's sitting room holding a glass of white wine while Sarada helps herself to the olives and crackers while silently communicating with her favourite toy that was apparently her father's when he had been her age.
"She usually goes to bed at eight," says Sakura, scooping up her daughter for a cuddle, "but I've been at work all day and I've hardly seen her. I don't think she minds."
Haruno Sakura's story is like a post-modern fairy tail. She had been a graduate Fine Arts student , finding her foray into the world of fashion and modelling a mid-semester before graduating. At twenty-one, she was signed to the La Couer label working under the fashion dictate, Tsunade, and two years later Haruno Sakura, her eponymous label, had taken the fashion world in a covetous storm. Clawing, biting, sequin-ripping refinement. Everybody wanted to wear Haruno Sakura.
What makes the Haruno Sakura story so compelling to those who buy her clothes, may it be men or women, is that Sakura is a living, breathing proof of the transformative powers of fashion against all odds. We buy clothes because it represents a bit about who we are, and who we want to be. And her clothes says more about herself than it does to the wearer. And this mystery, putting the puzzle pieces together of her life, is exactly what sells.
The sitting room where Sakura, Sarada, her PR and I sit, runs the full-width of the house, opening on to the garden. Her decor is a cheerful mix of minimalist and colour: one table holds synthetic Plumerias (she's trying to grow some in her backyard), another bears half a Frozen-themed cake; leftovers from Sarada's party. There's an empty glass bowl on another. ("Sarada is getting a goldfish for Christmas. But we're still waiting on her daddy to take her fish shopping.") Sasuke is currently flying back from Otogakure after a great win with the Akatsukis last night while Sakura is keeping in focus. "There's still plenty to do for the collection," she says, talking about the unveiling in London on the 5th before the family flies out to Hawaii on a holiday.
Sakura is as beautiful in person as she looks in the paparazzi shots, if not, more. You expect the glossy pink-mane, perfect nails and ivory skin; but it's the almond-shaped, verdant-green eyes that takes you by surprise. She is nothing but the embodiment of all things lovely.
One thing you must know about being Sakura Haruno is the number of overlapping full-time jobs she has: wife, mother, designer, brand ambassador, supermodel, businesswoman. She says that it's not as hectic as it looks. "There's a schedule for everything. My first priority is Sarada and my husband, of course, and then the label comes after. I work the usual eight hours. I spend a lot of those experimenting with pieces and colour. It works well when I'm surrounded by creativity. After dinner, I'll catch up with e-mails and sometimes, if possible, Sasuke-kun and I will argue about which chick flick to watch. He ends up choosing some horrible horror so I just fall asleep on him."
Speaking of, the whirlwind romance of one Haruno Sakura and one Uchiha Sasuke is perhaps the most coveted relationship in the famous limelight. It has a faithful following, even seven years into their marriage. And she has no idea why.
"The first time I met Sasuke-kun was at one of his matches where he was literally shoved on the plexiglass right in front of me. There was a bit of blood and cursing and it was not romantic whatsoever."
Ino Yamanaka, her best friend and current Miss Universe runner-up says otherwise though. "It's straight from the fairytale books. You'll never get the chance to fall in love like they do." Sakura agrees. "We are soul mates."
Sakura's fairytale began farther from the fashion industry she finds herself in nowadays. In fact, she had been on the running for the coveted Katsuyu scholarship for medicine before dropping it to pursue fine arts, a move that her parents found distasteful at the time.
"They've always been very supportive of my choices up until I dropped the scholarship. I told them at dinner. Eventually, they came about. I think they were more concerned with how unaffected I was than the whole fiasco of fine arts and where's-that-going-to-get-you issue. I started modelling to prove that I had somewhat of a plan but eventually they saw my passion."
Though famous for her pastel-coloured hair and ethereal gait that earned her the title of brand ambassador for big names such as Givenchy and Coco Chanel, the then twenty year-old passionately pushed her dream through her eponymous fashion blog that got her the attention of La Couer. Tsunade Senju, a fashion tyrant and Vogue Editor believed that Sakura's potential was rooted in her spunky, fiery attitude.
She cuddled Sarada as she relayed her sentiments against emotional conservatism in the fashion industry, explicitly highlighting it's necessity in the art.
"Designing clothes is in its purest form yet. Others have remained skeptic with the progressive characteristics of design but emotionally investing in your product widens your audience range. It helps them empathise and connect."
Sakura's been known to be satirical in her earlier pieces, often working as La Couer's vicious reviewer early on in her career. She laughs at the memory saying, "I was a university student drained and super stressed, like every student with a dream. I was venting and I've apologised since."
She let Sarada lead us to the patio for afternoon tea, jotting down a five year plan in her head.
"Sasuke-kun wants two more," she said wistfully, gazing at the adorable three year-old as she rode the scooter with her little dinosaur. "I'm gonna have to retire from modelling soon if I'm ever to bust out two more though. Perhaps in five years, we'll see."
Sakura understands the pressures of a modern woman but she's surrounded herself with the most supportive kind of people that she primly catwalks over the seeming bleakness of it. Her parents live a couple of blocks from theirs but she would never ask them to pick Sarada up from school unless absolutely necessary. "We'd visit them almost always though."
Her best friend and Miss Universe runner-up, Ino Yamanaka has just been engaged and Sakura points to a balcony where a table lay with folders upon folders of "wedding mess."
Sasuke's parents live a good twenty minutes out but they often visit also and they have Sunday dinners thrice every two months at their house. She has select close friends but is nonetheless adored by all. She cannot stress the importance of a healthy balance of relationships across professional and personal.
"Sasuke-kun grounds me in my professional life. He's grounded and held-together. I can be stupidly ambitious and he tells me with frankness. I think everyone needs that. A frank person who won't sugar coat anything."
Amidst the hectic life of it all, Sakura says that she's enjoying life more than ever. As a mother, she thrives on the affections of her little girl ("I can't imagine coming home without that cheeky smile."), as a businesswoman, she finds pleasure in doing what she loves most every day of her life. As a wife, however, she laughs in jest. "I think Sasuke-kun doesn't enjoy the fact that everyone still addresses me as Haruno-san," she laughs. But she enjoys being Uchiha Sasuke's more than anything.
"I used to be inspired by other people and now it's the other way around. It's a huge responsibility, really, but I feel weightless. There's a poignant story in each person, a kind of love, a passion, a draw to be and it's our job to build each other up in this way in what we do best."
Sasuke's turn next? ;)