#velour

=> Your research had been on the history of dyeing techniques for clothing, so your choice in a formalwear design for the final assignment had been obvious: A layered dress that displayed all the colours of the rainbow, with each fabric dipped in your handmade dyes based on historical techniques. Crushed flowers, earth and tree bark, carapace from beetles and secretions from sea snails, all pigments that would have been difficult to attain hundreds of sweeps ago but are now easily accessible in synthetic form.

=> After three perigees’ work on sourcing each pigment - or in the case of the murex snails, sourcing pigments made from their secretions because you didn’t have the time nor mettle to breed and then extract mucous from thousands of snails - learning how to crush the materials to make the dye, testing your dyes on small patches of fabric and finding the perfect material for the dress, and documenting the process with photographs and annotations in a portfolio, the fruits of your labour was complete. 

=> The sleeveless ballgown shone under the moonlight, pinks and greens bouncing off the white bodice. You had been working on this project at the Takami Estate, as Jikiro had been a big help with the creation of the dyes, and the estate grounds provided more space and far better ventilation for working with the materials compared to your apartment. Draped across the tatami were the layers of tulle and silk dyed in each colour. Cochineal beetles for the red, clay for the ochre (as you did not want to risk arsenic poisoning from messing with the much more vibrant orpiment), saffron for the yellow with extra pieces further dyed with woad to create green fabric, more woad for blue, and then indigo and murex snails for the final purple and tyrian shades. This created a long train of skirts of different lengths draping off the back of the dress, while the primary skirt remained the unblemished white silk and tulle, as if the dress itself had been carefully dipped in a rainbow. For an added touch, the tulle layers sparkle whenever the light hits them just right for a bit of extra magic.

=> It’s not the most extravagant dress you’ve ever designed, and based on aesthetics alone you wouldn’t place it in even your top twenty designs, but in terms of the amount of effort and time spent, you don’t think anything compares.

=> Tomorrow it will be packed up and shipped to your university campus where you submit it along with your portfolio a couple nights early, as you have another very pressing matter to attend to. You wanted to assist Iva in getting back one of his favourite dresses he modeled that is currently in storage at an art museum, but the owner would not relinquish it to you unless you donated a couple of your works and also designed an exclusive piece for an upcoming fashion exhibition. You and Jamie tried to negotiate a deal as best as you could, but you could only push out the deadline an extra week from when your university assignment is due, so you’ll be holed up in your sewing room for the next seven nights to get that design done.

=> It’ll be a tough deadline to meet, and you’re already anticipating a few sleepless days, but if it’s for a friend and someone you want to impress, you’re ready to take that sacrifice. Besides, this won’t be the first or even twentieth time you’ve had to make something on a ridiculously tight schedule.