The Pink Suit: A Novel by Nicole Kelby Page B

the suit was made. It wasn’t done, but she didn’t care. If the Ladies found out, she could be fired. If she ruined the toile accidentally, she could be fired. But to make the pink suit for Maggie was an irresistible challenge. This pink suit was real art, after all. Not a copy of a copy. My brush with greatness, she thought.
    She didn’t have much time. Kate cleared off her worktable by the fistful, heaping things upon other things. She put on her white cotton gloves, the ones she always used when handling fine fabrics, and rolled up the sleeves of her old bathrobe.
    Chanel always worked in a suit, with hat and pearls—the Ladies had told her that, but Kate didn’t have time to care. Chanel’s box had been opened by the Ladies and resealed with just a single strip of cellophane tape. Kate pulled the tape up carefully. The muslin toile was still wrapped in white tissue paper embossed with Chanel’s name and the double-C logo. There was a wax seal. If Kate was very careful, no one would know that she’d opened the box. She gently slid the toile out of its wrapping. The seal remained unbroken.
    Good. Fine. Perfect.
    It was difficult to believe it was really Chanel’s toile in her hands. At Chez Ninon, they’d never received a line-by-line replica of Chanel’s work before; there was something about it that was profound. It had gravity to it. Kate now knew that her copy of the toile wasn’t even close, was a cheap imitation. Eegit, she thought. She’d felt so unbelievably proud of what a wonderful job she thought she’d done. But now Kate could see that the Wife would have known immediately that Kate’s effort was only an imitation. She was, after all, a very good client of Chanel.
    The toile held a faint, musky scent of roses and cigarettes. The muslin was a very particular weight and was the color of old ivory. Chanel probably had her own muslin made especially for the bouclé. It was basted together with golden thread. Enwrought, Kate thought. Holding the Chanel in her hands, she suddenly realized that she was no better than a trained monkey. If a designer always used a particular stitch, then Kate used it. If a designer rolled the collar in a certain way, Kate did that too. At Chez Ninon, you did whatever it took to make a garment seem “real.” But in the end, even if the copy you made looked exactly the same as the original—with the same material and the same perfect stitch—a suit, like this pink suit, was only nearly right. Knockoffs, as they were called. Off, like meat left lying in the sun.
    What made a Chanel was Chanel. It was, quite simply, the woman herself. This pink suit was not just a suit: it was Chanel’s vision. It was complicated and yet seemingly simple. It was art: beautiful, and overwhelming.
    Kate held the toile to her face for a moment, weighing it and committing the weight to memory. In order to create a proper pattern, she would have to adjust the cut of her own toile accordingly and make allowances for her own fabric, which was rough and cheap. The world is filled with so many things that back-room girls can’t even imagine, she thought. Things like a toile that is soft as cashmere.
    Kate dismantled Chanel’s toile, the test garment, so very carefully. Every stitch—and there were hundreds—she snipped with her sharp scissors. When finally done, she ironed the pieces flat. Each part was like a piece of a puzzle. She placed them over a few yards of yellow calico that she’d been saving for a summer dress. It was not the right weight at all, but it was all she had. Kate pinned the pieces down and sharpened her scissors again. She had to be careful. One snag. One stain. One slip. The muslin could be ruined so easily. But Kate cut. And cut.
    The heaven’s embroidered cloths,
    Enwrought with golden and silver light.
    While she worked, Kate could hear everything in the apartments above and below her.