Chapter 13 – Pride and Petticoats

With the exception of obviously backward societies like Genua, Quirm, Al Khali, the Agatean Empire, and other less enlightened societies, the entire Disc looked to Ankh Morpork for the cutting, and sometimes bleeding, edge of high fashion. The names of renown designers such as the Houses of Bullworth, Blueflower, Dulcet, Sours, and Puray were known throughout high society across the Disc, or at least among high society across the Sto Plains, of which 99% resided in Ankh Morkpork.

But clothing shopping in Ankh Morpork was not a simple affair for the well-to-do. The working classes of course had it easy. The bottom of the social ladder could buy their clothes second, third, or fourth-hand at the conveniently located neighborhood Shonky Shop. And if the quality was low, so were the prices, and the selection was practically anything you could ask for provided you didn't ask for it to be new or fit properly.

Bump up a few rungs on the social ladder, and you had the benefit of even greater selection, because now you could buy the secondhand fashions of the upper classes. There were even some ready-made items that you could afford, provided you didn't mind looking like you were wearing something a size too large or small for you.

Your average tradesman, which included Jessica and Jonathon, could not afford much in the way of custom-made garments. The only really affordable ready-made clothes were outerwear like hats, cloaks, and footwear. Most everyone suffered through ill-fitting work clothes that were only a few steps away from wearing a burlap sack, such as Jessica's normal work attire.

If you wanted good quality new clothing for special occasional use, you bought the cloth yourself and handed it over to a family member that could work magic on it. (Or if you could afford it to a professional seamstress or tailor). Those special items were made with care. The fabric was chosen to last years, and the styles were chosen to last as well. Jessica was wearing one of these, and she was proud to have something appropriate for this outing. Her normal smock definitely wouldn't do.

Thus, Jessica and Myria found themselves peering into the display windows of Bullworth's Exclusive Designes.

"Those statues wearing the clothing," Jessica bit at her lip. "Those just aren't realistic. No one with the money to buy that kind of clothing could possibly look that starved."

Myria narrowed her eyes, analyzing and considering. "Jessica, I believe you are mistaken."

"No seriously. I've seen the amount of food their servants buy. Unless they are just throwing it away, there is no way they could fit into that!"

"You misunderstand. I am not commenting on the diet of the nobility. I mean to say that those are, in fact, not statues but persons."

Jessica's head snapped around and she stepped closer to the glass to take a closer look at the two pale and stick-thin apparitions draped in Bullworth's latest creations. "Holy cow! That one just blinked!" She turned back to Myria, "But who could possibly wear that? Other than those two I mean."

"I believe there is an island off the coast of the Counterweight Current where the local population has been forced due to crop failures to subsist on the Agatean stink slug[1] for several years. It is my understanding that one must be exceptionally hungry before one can, as it were, ensure the eating process is not reversible."

Jessica and Myria shuddered together, and turned their gazes back to the window. Jessica considered again. Do you suppose they use those models, um, so they don't need as much cloth? I'm guessing it must be expensive? Maybe no one wants to buy the dress once it has been worn? They must keep the other sizes inside."

Walking to the entrance, a doorman greeted them with deference to Lady Myria and a general air of ignoring Jessica, which rankled a bit. The scene that met them was not what they expected. Instead of a room of finished clothing, there were only more models, a handful of obviously well-fed clients, and several fussy staff members with tape measures and cloth samples.

They quickly learned that for the true social climber, it was practically impossible to purchase anything 'off the hanger'. For one thing, it would be a travesty to be caught wearing ill-fitting clothes and no one had quite struck on the idea of standard sizes, because when only a few hundred peers in the city could afford your design, what good would making several dozen of each possible size do you?

No, the truly elite had to suffer the trials and tribulations of custom fittings, with all the measurements, prodding in intimate locations, pinsticking, and holding poses that, in the Agatean Empire, could easily be misinterpreted as someone preparing to kick some serious Wang[2].

And after all that painstaking fitting, you had to walk away empty handed, and wait for the designer to have the desired ensemble created from scratch. The torture!

And Charlie Bullworth was the most famous of these designers, and the one truly on the bleeding edge of fashion. Bullworth was the first to hire young waifs off the street and have them model entire sets of clothing for prospective buyers. His reasoning was that the waifs already had that half-starved look he was going for, thus reducing the material costs for the modeled outfits (as Jessica had guessed). The unfortunate side effect was that after a few weeks of actually making money, the resulting improvement in their diets would soon have them no longer fitting in the designs. He solved this by promptly firing them and hiring a replacement who was 'hungry for a job'.[3]

The other reason for his success was that for some strange reason the very well fed and, shall we say, more robust clients that could afford his creations somehow convinced themselves that they too, when dressed in the same outfit, would look thin because the models did. It was all he could do to convince his clients to allow him to alter the outfits to better fit a more full figure, instead of sending them off looking like a sausage shoved through a drinking straw.

Mr. Bullworth as a result had become wildly successful, to the point that Ankh-Morpork peerage had begun asking him for the pleasure of hosting his next fashion show, but only if they were the only ones to host that particular design. Lady Venturi had gone so far as to ask whether she could have a line made up especially for her, with design elements that she suggested. The AdVenturi Line became an instant sensation, at least in the Venturi household, and Mr. Bullworth discovered he could actually double his prices if he gave each of the peers their own line.

After some of this was explained to Myria by her assigned sycophant Mr. Grisswell, she spent some time reviewing the available fashions. Jessica offered helpful suggestions several times, but each time was interrupted rather rudely by Mr. Grisswell (or, as she christened him under her breath, Mr. Gristle).

Eventually, they chose three ensembles that seemed to suit Myria and Mr. Grisswell had a female assistant take the required measurements and informed them that the ensembles would be completed no earlier than next week.

"But Myria-"

"Mind your tongue gel." Grisswell interrupted, leaving her gaping like a fish and fuming. "My Lady, it will take time to create these to your specific measurements. Quality can not be rushed!"

"I see. But Mr. Grisswell, I do need something more suitable than my current attire for the present. Surely you have something that could serve?"

He was obviously unhappy with this. "You do not understand. For you to be seen in an ill-fitting Bullworth… it would scandalize you and damage our reputation. I can not allow it."

It turned out, after some discussion of the monetary value of certain levels of damaged reputation, that Grisswell could allow a great many things and summoned his female assistant again. "Fleur, do you remember the dress that Lady Pensive commissioned before her unfortunate event?"

"Yes Mr. Grisswell."

"Good." He eyed Myria critically. "You understand it will be too small in the waist, and too large in… other places. It will have to be altered so it still will not be ready for several hours."

Fleur returned shortly with a subdued yet elegant crème colored dress with flared sleeves and a narrow waist, and escorted Myria to a changing area. When she returned, Grisswell informed her that Jessica had determined to wait outside, which was confusing but it did not occur to her to disbelieve him.

Instead she stood as he walked around her, examining the fit and becoming confused, and then flummoxed. Finally he stepped back and snapped his fingers irritably. "Fleur! Come here!"

"Yes Mr. Grisswell" as she appeared at his side, looking fearful.

"Give me Lady Myria's measurements." She retrieved the notations and he examined them. "Yes, exactly as I estimated before. But this is impossible. The dress fits her perfectly! Measure her again!"

"Mr. Grisswell, I assure you this is not needed." Myria protested, but Fleur had quickly completed her task, then stared in confusion at the results. Grisswell looked over her shoulder.

"Impossible! But the measurements must be correct. I can see that they are correct. And the dress fits as if made for you!" He shook his head. "Enough. I have a headache. Fleur, see that Lady Myria is properly cared for. I am taking the rest of the afternoon." As he walked away, Myria could hear him mumbling to himself. "Impossible…" He seemed quite broken, because for the first time in a decades-long career both the eyes and the tape measure had failed him.[4]

Of course Myria had yielded to temptation and cheated. She had not even considered that they would notice, nor that it would cause such a problem. It had been such a small adjustment after all, and she very much wanted the dress to fit. A bit of adjustment here, a bit there. What harm could it do?

Not the dress of course, with the patterns and seams it would have been more… difficult somehow to change that. But reducing the tautness of muscle tissue here, expanding some additional fatty tissue there, it was so simple!

And now it was complicated… which measurements would they use on the other ensembles? And would Jessica have another of her 'freak outs' as she had called it.

She needn't have been concerned, at least as far as Jessica's powers of observation. When she left Bullworth's she found Jessica was in no mood to discuss her attire, nor her waist size.

[1] The most common dish made from the Agatean stink slug was called boomerang bisque. It's best not to dwell on that.

[2] Wang was a very well established and serious family in the Agatean Empire, known for their fastidious book-keeping and a tendency to be assaulted by their clients for being a bit too honest about taxes-due reporting.

[3] No one said Charlie Bullworth was a humanitarian, just a genius at marketing.

[4] They Grisswell in the Mended Drum three days later, drunk out of his mind and complaining that the level of alcohol in his glass kept dropping no matter how carefully he measured it. He got over it eventually…