"No."
As she stood and smiled at an approaching man, she whispered, "Pretend you have."
The man had black hair and a stubbly beard. He wore a long coat. A pair of enormous yellow-tinted shades covered half of his face. "Pilla has told me all about you," he said as he sat. His accent was hard and heavy on the saliva.
"It's an honor to meet you," I said.
He narrowed his eyes as if he doubted me. When the waitresswarrior came with our mercury floats, he ordered a hemlocktwist.
"You were involved with that yarn-ripping boom." His tone was disapproving.
"Kind of."
"He's from the slubs," Pilla added, as if that explained anything.
His face was a study of wrinkles. "And you want to learn fashion from me? With an out-of-line designer who goes around wearing fornication coats in Seattlehama?"
"I do."
"He was knitting skivvé," enthused Pilla. "You know, those fantasy sex panties that are big here. Tane made them without any training. Usually those knitters study for a couple of years."
The waitresswarrior returned with his drink. He downed it in one long gulp and handed back the glass. "Another." Frowning at Pilla, he said, "Knit skivvé are not real fashion. They are just an accessory and a trifling one at that." He looked at me. "Was this underpants your own design?"
I shook my head. "Not really."
"Those awful things popped up in Miran six months ago," he told Pilla. He then went on about some boutique, jobbers, and a group of weavers involved in some Xi scandal in Europa2, but I couldn't follow.
Zanella's second drink arrived with the food. Pilla and I had walrus stakes. He devoured his albatross sushi so quickly I wondered if he'd eaten in a week.
"Can you show him something?" asked Pilla at the end of our meal.
"He seems unlikely." Zanella smiled sourly. "But for what you mentioned earlier, Pilla, I will endeavor to introduce him to something of the world of true fashion."
She reached across the table and they shook. It was like I was a slubber again and these two reps had just bought and sold me.
"Pay attention to him," she whispered before we left. "He's a legend. You have no idea how lucky you are that he's in need. You'll study with him during the day and stay with me at night. I'll see you later. And listen to everything he says." She headed to the Xi boutique; Zanella and I boarded the Shangtung entervator and traveled across the city to The Marcella. His place was in the six hundreds, and although The Marcella was opposite The Velour, Kira and her sharpened knitting needles were not far.
Our ride was silent, and Zanella spoke to me only once to say, "I came to Seattlehama to think about existence, contemplate the flow of time, and to learn how to play the steam koto." I got the feeling he expected me to laugh, but I didn't know if it was funny. Zanella rolled his eyes and sighed deeply. As I sat staring down at my feet, I imagined slinking back to YeOld#1 and begging for my Juki.
The sleep boutique Zanella was staying at was quite select, which made the mess revealed when he unlocked the door all that much more shocking. Magazines, clothes, dishes, papers, screens, clocks, towels, masks, even bits of braided hair covered the floor.
"Oh," said the designer, as if he had forgotten. "Meet the mess." He cleared off a chair for me and had me sit. "You don't know shit about me, do you?"
"I don't know designers."
"Glorious!" Zanella rolled his eyes. "Well, a deal's a deal. I get high-quality Xi from Pilla and you'll get some… I don't know… advice sounds too unstructured… some fashion lessons from a former star." He pointed behind me. "Let's see if you've got some fashion bobbins. Over there in that… stuff is a suit safe. Bring it over here."
In the corner was a pile of junk taller than me. Most of it seemed to be dirty, wadded, and torn clothes. Buried in the chaos I found a gleaming, four-foot-tall, chrome safe with a large black dial in the middle. Even though it was on wheels, it seemed to weigh two tons and was difficult to maneuver. Zanella did nothing while I struggled with the shiny beast. As I pushed it toward him I let the wheels crease the magazines, boxes, and papers on the floor out of spite.
When I finally had it positioned before him, he inhaled deeply, and muttered, "What's the number…" He peered at me. "Any ideas?"
I shook my head. He puckered and unpuckered his mouth, obviously hoping to conjure the combination; I watched him for signs of obvious psychosis. A second later, he turned the clicking dial this way and that. The door popped open with a solid click.
Inside the lit interior hung a simple navy suit jacket. "It's one of mine. It's not that wonderful. It was a hit about twelve years ago… wait… no… god, it's been twenty-two years now. Anyway, your first task is to take it apart and then put it back together." He pushed himself up and headed to the bathroom. A minute later he emerged in a transparent suit. Through it I could see his droopy arms and the loose flesh between his legs. He scowled at me. "I'll be back tomorrow night to see how you're doing."
As he opened the door to head out, I asked, "You're going to burn?"
"It is none of your shit business." He seemed to go, but then stared forward as some momentary sadness seemed to fill his eyes. "Yes. I am."
"I tried Xi yesterday. Everything was made out of cloth."
"Cloth? Curious."
"My dad was a heavy burner." As I spoke, I wondered why I was telling him.
"Most burners in this city are young and fashionable. And they burn to free themselves from their suspicions and inhibitions." He stopped. Wrinkles scored his face. "This old man burns to ease his soul into the tight suits of senility and death."
For several moments after the designer had gone, I saw my dad sleeping in the corn, his chest covered with Xi sores. I wondered why he had burned so much and hoped whatever it was the yarn had been a comfort.
Waking from my thoughts, I cleared some space on the floor by pushing all of the junk into a corner, and spent the night taking that jacket apart. It was what I had wanted to do since I had gotten to the city, but hadn't been brave enough. I had snatched yarns because I had been afraid to take more. I had knit and tailored because it was a job, but this felt like the sex I had always wanted.
As for the navy jacket, it was unlike any I had seen in Seattlehama. The shell material was the best part. The heavy high-twist wool felt like what I imagined Vada's cheek felt like. The front of the jacket was dotted with double buttons, the left side slashed by an angled glove pocket. The bottom hem would have fallen a foot below the hip on most men, and the shoulders were heavily padded, which gave it a top-heavy look. The collar was wide with asymmetrical notches, and inside, the bright red lining seemed deliberately worn, even a little frayed in the left armpit. Dozens of tiny pockets covered the inside, as if to house a magician's colony of performing sparrows. On the inside back I counted nine labels, each with intricate logos and text: A production of Ottoman & Poplin, In Cooperation with Wadmal Council, With Assistance from Silesia Partners, Development and Coordination by A & U Industries, with thanks to Arch Velani. At the top a black label read: Executive Production by L. F. W. M. Nathan Zanella ACE.
While cleaning the floor, I had found a sewing needle and used that to pull the seams. I started below a fold of lining on the inside of the left sleeve. Each piece of lining, cloth, backing and pad, each pile of scribbly thread, all the buttons, stays, and labels, I laid it all out like an exploded view.
Along the way, I found dozens of odd and interesting curiosities. The outside pockets were all triple stitched with a curiously strong, red thread. One pocket was lined with a silvery lamé, which I guessed had something to do with either electronics or heat. As I got further into the matting and horsehair layers over the shoulders, a layer of white felt nearly disintegrated as I removed it. Other places, the deconstruction was like a puzzle, and I had to figure out in what order the parts had been assembled so as to pull them apart without damage.
Once it was all laid out, I stood, stretched my hands and
neck, and got to work putting it back together. That went surprisingly quickly. As I held the pieces together, I found I could actually insert the needle in the original hole and pull it so that the stitches matched exactly.
Sometime late the next day, the door opened. L. F. W. M. Nathan Zanella ACE stepped in. He was now wearing a long, dark fornication coat. His eyes were red, his cheeks hollow, and his hair splayed in all directions. He glared at me unhappily, but then noticed the jacket hanging in the open vault. Bending, he peered at it. He checked the sleeves and then the tags in the back. He pulled it from the hook.
"So, you didn't even try? What did you do, just sit here the whole time? Oh, this is shit sad indeed!"
I pointed my chin at the top of the vault where I had put a single horsehair. It had occurred to me that I would need some proof that I had disassembled the jacket. That fiber had come from deep inside the layers of the right shoulder.
Zanella picked up the hair and felt it between his fingertips. He seemed about to laugh at me, but then something changed. It was like he recognized the fiber and its specific crinkle. For several frantic moments, he turned the jacket inside out, checked the numerous pockets, felt around the back of the collar, and inspected the armholes. When he finally hung the jacket back in the box, and closed the door on it, his expression was confused and maybe annoyed.
Picking up the horsehair again, he stood silent for a long moment. "Shit," he finally muttered, "you did it."
PART 2 Z-TWIST
SEATTLEHAMA: SINGLED OUT ON THE ROCOCO ENTERVATOR
"If you don't know history," said Zanella, "you can't repeat it. Fashion is about cycles. It's about sensing what's about to happen. It's about seeing into the future. No… it's more than that… it's about making the future. If you guess right, you will have created next year. There are few who work so intimately with the future… cherish that."
He would often deliver these lectures standing before the windows, looking far down at the circle of buildings while he applied his make-up and sprayed his hair with an army of products. For the first several days he talked and talked.
"To be successful, you must know not just cloth, body, and ease, but time," he said another day as rain poured down outside. "Our job is to make love to the zeitgeist, listen to its moans, and interpret their meaning."
After a week he led me to another room in the sleep boutique. There he stored his collection of historical garments, fashion magazines, cloth and seam samples, yarn recipes, and fiber formulas. Unlike his living space, it was immaculate. It was a museum, a library, a laboratory, a design room, and for me-the world's most wonderful playground. We spent weeks unboxing and unwrapping one treasure after another.
I had to memorize his entire fabric samples collection and he would quiz me by showing me the three-inch squares.
"Damask… gambroon… pellicule… dornick… chiffon…" I stopped when he showed me the next.
"Hello? What's the matter?"
I woke from a daydream. "Sorry… drap-de-Berry…" His sample was darker than the woman's suit, but it was like seeing her paralyzed scream again.
Zanella told me where things had came from, who made what, who stole what idea from whom, how it was marketed, how the mills ruined the order, how the product deviated from the contract, and a hundred other stories. He quizzed me constantly, and soon I had answers about fabric, construction, patterning and draping. Identifying and discussing other designers' work took longer.
"You must see this," Zanella said one day, opening a sealed black box. Inside was a highly constructed pale yellow suit with clear buttons, no pockets, and low drop shoulders. Zanella laughed as he picked it up and handed it to me. "Poor Marrion! He's gone now. Rest his soul. Lister Erik Marrion Chat was his name. Marrion was his mark. He loved these pale and destitute yellows. He wore them all the time. His house was covered with them. And he adored those thick glass buttons. He made them himself with some mad high-fire technique. But he was a genius at tailoring. There are few more exquisite suits than his, but…" Zanella let out a long exhale. "He just kept doing the same silhouette in the same palette. I told him to experiment, but he clung to his ideas. He thought those ideas were his being. For years he was loved. He made dresses and gowns; he made popular de nimes in yellow, of all colors. He sold and sold… but then… overnight… he was hated." He met my eyes. "Fashion changes and fashion is the universal constant."
Those were my days. As much as I could, I traveled up and down in the Europa Showhouse admiring Vada and her endless costumes. Once she wore a stunning dress layered with tapestry and bone, next a sheer caustic dimity clung to her curvy figure, another time her face was barely visible behind feathers and Chantilly.
I decided that I wasn't just attracted to her appearance, or her magnificent and often risqué clothes, but to her maturity, her being, and the way she stood. When she was on stage, she was balanced, solid, and rooted to the floor in a way that reminded me of corn stalks at the height of the harvest. She belonged in a way that I could only wish.
When the Europa Showhouse docked the last stop, and Vada thanked, waved, and blew air kisses, I would slink off, my hands stuffed in my pockets hiding my excitement.
Thus would begin my nights. But instead of a few frantic moments in enterjohns listening to the admonishments and coupon offers from knitter-kritters, they were filled with fashion of a different sort when Pilla introduced me to something called Pearl River Love Tights.
"I'm not into the whole epic character stuff," she explained. "With these it's just a body and a minimum of fabric."
The bright yellow, pink, and teal bodysuits came in sealed packages, covered with cartoon frogs and pigs and promises of fulfillment, improved function, and ecstasy. The knit fabric within heightened touch and warmth like a giant magnifying glass. The first time, it was just the two of us sliding against each other in her green bedroom. The next night we headed to her Xi boutique and in one of the back rooms found a pile of others all dressed in Pearl Rivers.
I liked the tights better than Xi and soon got to know all the styles and weaves, from the slightly rough Tricolene, to the sheer Visiweave. Tights parties brought an intense and anonymous fashioning, where I often imagined I was with Vada. Some nights I only got an hour or two of sleep before finally collapsing in some corner of the boutique.
One morning, I woke in a pile of sleeping bodies. After peeling off the knit, and starting to re-dress in my usual clothes, I stopped. Staring at myself in the mirror, I hated what I saw.
I was dressing in a clumsy approximation of Warrior Remon of Loin, with violets, dark purples, fringe and frills. Worse, my face was as it had been shaped that day with Kira at the Black Blossom Shopping Amphitheater and Custom Fashion Art House. The man I was looking at wasn't me. Over coffee, I told Pilla.
"Finally!" She handed me her MasterCut. "Yes! Get a makeover."
A gender consultant reshaped my face and hair. I found a men's store nearby that sold a designer that Zanella had introduced me to-Cloque, a reclusive and little-known designer rumored to be nearly one hundred years old, had been designing since he was six. His clothes were not about trend, drift, or boom; instead they were about the integrity of cloth, simple tailoring, and cool colors.
When I walked into Zanella's that afternoon, I expected him to be stunned by my new look, but I was the one to be surprised. Zanella's room was immaculate. A stack of suitcases stood by the door.
"You're leaving."
"Back where I belong!" Behind the yellow lenses of his glasses, tears streaked his face. "I have stayed in Seattlehama long enough… I have contemplated long enough… I have fornicated enough coats… and I only took one steam-koto lesson. I actually burned my fingers!" He pulled off his glasses, wiped his face on a sleeve, and eyed me up. "I have something for you." He pointed to the old cloth-covered book on the coffee table.
Historical Highlights of Extraordinary Tailoring, Draping, and Costume Design. Editor Betran Feldspar.
I p
icked it up and began to page through the yellowed volume.
"Two articles are mine," he said. "‘The Lost Drape Technique,' and ‘The Secrets of Gravitational Deformation Tables for Woven Cloth.'"
"You can't go," I said.
"It's time."
"There more things in your collection! I haven't seen everything."
"Only a few trifles."
I stared at the book. "I'm not ready."
"Please have a seat, Tane, I want to tell you something." Zanella clapped his hands happily. "And would you like a juice? When I cleaned up, I found a service-fridge in the corner." He laughed. "I had completely forgotten about it. I hate what a slob I am."
I sat, declining the juice.
"I must tell you something, Tane. When we first met, I did not think you were worthy. I didn't want to teach you anything, but I needed the money and the Xi that your… paramour… sugar… whatever you call that peculiar saleswarrior of yours… provided." He tilted his head back and propped the large frames back onto his now dry nose. With a white cloth, he dabbed an errant drop of juice that had splashed on his shirt. "But I've been surprised by you. You have vision that I do not possess. You have an innate command of fabric." He clasped his hands together. "So, I have two things to tell you. First, you still have much to learn. You are only now ready to begin in fashion, but you must first design women's clothes. I know that you have an interest in menswear, but study the female form. You will learn everything and more from her. The male and what he wears is a single planet to her solar system of silhouette and couture."
I didn't like the idea, but said, "Okay… I'll design for women."
"And second, don't let anyone ever tell you that fashion is superficial. It's the only thing that distinguishes humans from the critters. We have our fashion and our fashion is our culture. Leave people naked and not only will they freeze or fry, but their society and language will collapse to the hunter-gatherer of fifty thousand years ago." He leaned forward and spoke in a hushed tone. "Listen to me, Tane, as a designer… you are the shaper of men. You are the builder of order. It is through the tailor… that kings are fashioned."
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