The dress clung to her like nothing else, only leaving it's tight constraints and billowing out not far from her feet.
Green was a striking color on Emilie; it lit up her eyes and somehow made her look more alive, and yet that dress concealed a side to her beauty and almost appeared fake.
Gabriel had to bite back the urge to sketch her, to sketch a purple color, a dress that would stand in stark contrast to her skin tone, bring out the pale color to her skin, and hint at the lighter streaks of blond hair that were barely noticeable under the wave of the rest of them.
She'd come to life like paint on a canvas, fabric cascaded around her in deep purple hues, making the loose, soft fabric for a lady as beautiful and elegant as her, surely deserved softer fabric, nothing too stiff, nothing too rigid, or too formal.
It would be a ballgown fit for a princess, fit for a queen, and Gabriel's mouth ran dry; the image too vivid, too real in his head, calling into contrast his reality, and making him really wish that he'd had more than his finely tuned and sculpted notebook, full of designs that had been drawn and redrawn probably hundreds of times over. He wanted them to be perfect especially since he was looking for more than internment possibilities; he wanted to see just how far he could go, be challenged beyond belief, and rise up on top. It was how he was raised after all.
"Oh, who do we have here?" Her voice wasn't as dainty as he'd imagined it to be, but it was just as gentle and almost as soft as the ballgown that invaded his thoughts at the sight of her before.
"I'm Gabriel Agreste." The name didn't mean much in the long scheme of things since he wasn't famous, but his gruff tone nearly sounded like he was.
"You're quite confident. I'm Emilie." She shrugged, like her fortune or family didn't mean all that much as far as the fashion business went.
"You're beautiful tonight, but the dress doesn't quite suit you." Gabriel hated those foolish words that tumbled out of his mouth, but he couldn't pull them back fast enough.
"What does then?" Emilie's tone wasn't judging or harsh, not even as she left his side to return a moment later with a notebook that she must have had somewhere nearby, "Draw it for me."
He'd been stunned silent by her earlier question and yet he knew enough that the pen handed to him wasn't nearly enough to catch just what he'd seen in his head as he sketched the ballgown in blue ink, soft as silk, gorgeous as can be.
His hands would have shaken under the burden of his nerves before her, but all that he wanted to do was catch it perfectly on to the page, "Do you have watercolors?"
"Oh?" Emilie teased lightly though her curiosity shone through as she marched from the elegant ballroom, guiding Gabriel by fleeting touches of her hand.
She stopped before a large room and when she pushed into it, he found an art studio.
"It isn't much. I'm not as good as the artists, I admire, but it does have watercolors." She moved around to set up a small arrangement of watercolors, reaching for water, but pausing to watch when Gabriel dropped down to carefully paint over the dress, and she gaped openly at the sight of the dress becoming such a gorgeous shade of purple that fit more like a purple splotch over the page though it quickly turned into a smile of her own.
Gabriel only paused from his work when Emilie sat down beside him to stare at the just finished dress on the page, "I'd hire you."
Somehow his gown had stretched from a more simple gown into a detailed masterpiece, light ruffles spread out from the bottom of the dress though vanished shortly after they began before another spot of ruffles cascaded over part of the top. The purple didn't change shade, but the ruffles appeared so slight and small on the drawing that it would have been hard if you weren't really looking to spot them.
"I'd be honored, but you can't." Gabriel played with the pen from before before he scrawled down the kind of fabric he'd need and calmly asked what size she wore.
Emilie to this day had no idea how she'd answered him, let alone told him the right size.