Solo This is Men

[Rosela]

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Timestamp: 88th of Fall, 514AV

Rosela was slow to get moving that morning, knowing she’d already planned to work from home that day. She could then spare herself the trouble and misery of walking across town and make use of her in-home office space. The small, circular room across from her bedroom was cozy and, after plugging the door to the courtyard with heavy wool, relatively warm. In the spring, she’d enjoyed working with the door open, the frogs in her pool-turned-pond providing a low chorus to break the silence.

There wasn’t much in the room so there weren’t many surfaces to get dusty, making it one of the easier rooms in the house to bring back to a habitable level of cleanliness. There was simply a desk, chair, and small shelf with a couple bolts of fabric and some supplies she’d brought home to work with and never returned to the shop.

”Good morning,” she greeted the sparse shadows of the room. Like the shadows of the rest of the house, they were often quiet and didn’t typically speak to her unless spoken to first.

”It is morning.”

“I think we’re going to have a good day.” The shadows unsurprisingly did not respond to this. Unless she herself was emotional about something, they didn't seem to have many opinions, or if they did, they didn't share.

Rosela stretched hugely as she stared out the window, the child in her belly taking a turn to push out as well. In the moment of silence, she sent brief prayers to Izurdin and Xyna for her to have a productive day and though the daytime and her shop were not Akajia’s usual realms of influence, a prayer was sent to her simply out of respect.

She wanted to try something new with her design work today that would hopefully help her work a little faster. While she didn’t feel her design work was slow by any means, if she expected to be able to upkeep her clothing line as well as add her own cosmetics by Spring, her time would become a precious currency between her various projects.

If time was to become precious, then she obviously needed a way to track it. She’d learned the trick of counting time when she’d started meditating, afraid she’d slip into her own mind and get lost without something to bring her back. At the time, she’d stuck a spoon in her candle, but here, she wanted to keep track of smaller amounts of time. Guessing how much time the candle burned in a half bell, she stuck a pin into the side of the candle a fraction of an inch from the top. At the candle’s base was a cheap tin bowl, where the pin would hopefully drop and make enough noise to attract her attention.

She intended to start with men’s fashion that day, since they were less flamboyant and therefore easier to mentally get into. In half a bell, she hoped to finish two, no…three designs. Rubbing her hands together in excitement, she felt some inertia to get started. What should she do first? A quick glance at the candle reminded her that time was creeping forward even now and she threw herself forward at the first idea that came to her.
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[Rosela]

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Sweaters. Turtlenecks. Vests. Button-ups. Pullovers. T-shirts. Tank tops.

Rosela ran through as many kinds of shirts as she could while quickly sketching out three male torsos on her page. It was her normal practice to have a single page for each design, but she only realized her mistake after she started sketching and didn’t want to waste time erasing and starting over.

For the first design, she had something simple, but slightly formal in mind – date-wear, as she’d market it. Grabbing her midnight blue pencil, she drew over the outline of the torso for a sweater, stopping short at the cuffs and collar. Then, switching the pencil out for a gray one, she drew in the cuffs and collar with sharp, boxy lines, indicating a pressed-style shirt. As much as she wanted to believe everyone hated the cold like she did, relatively lighter winter wear was also needed, especially for the men. The bigger the Akalak, the less he seemed to care about the cold.

With light strokes of the pencil, she added stripes to the collar and cuffs and, switching back to the blue pencil, added thick hems around the places where the sweater ended. After a moment’s consideration, she added two arcs at the bottom to show the pseudo-undershirt peeking out there.

Leaning back, she smiled down at the design and glanced up at the candle. It was much further gone than she expected and immediately pushed forward to the next design.

She didn’t already have an idea in mind for this one and ended up fumbling for a moment while she figured something out. On instinct, she grabbed the red pencil and began drawing in a red shirt, giving it a deep V-neck. The idea began to coalesce in her mind and another hand pulled over the black pencil while she rounded out the edges with smooth arced lines. While she was sure most Akalaks would enjoy showing off that much chest, she covered up the interior of the V-neck with a stark black button up, allowing the lines to loosen around the collar to leave it thrown casually open. Black cuffs would be too much, so she left them off, but repeated the addition of the bottom of the shirt poking out from under the sweater.

It was bold statement of a shirt, and Rosela happily moved onto the third torso on her sheet. For this one, she wanted something simple and kept the black pencil in hand. The stitching would be the statement here and-

ting-tinktink

She looked up abruptly to see the pin rolling to the bottom of the tin pan, her half-bell up. Letting out an affronted huff, she glared at the tiny pin and returned irritably to her third design. It was a simple one; she was almost done with it anyway. The torso was lightly shaded in with the black pencil and one of her other hands hovered over the pencil pile. When she was done, she turned her attention to the colors, picking out lime green as a change of pace. With short, hard marks, she drew in the stitches around the various panels of fabric, making the stitches themselves an accent piece rather than simply what held the shirt together. A simple design, but an effective one as it could be duplicated in any number of colors.

Irritation faded as she worked and by the time she was done, she felt mostly disappointment that she couldn’t meet her goal. Resetting the pin, she threw back her shoulders and pushed her mind deeper into the work, determined to make it work.
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[Rosela]

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It took another two tries before she could barely manage to fit three designs into a half-bell, but Rosela enjoyed her triumph just the same. Leaning back to stretch, two hands massaged around her belly, unconsciously trying to ease the pressure there. Dead leaves skittered across the courtyard outside her window. Leaves would have been a good motif for her fall line, if she’d been around to make it. She filed the thought away in her memory, hoping she remembered it next year.

Next up were cloaks, which only needed a couple designs since their style didn’t change much from year to year. Setting her pin, she immediately began sketching.

She decided on two sold-fur cloaks, to see if she could really get them done before the pin dropped. The starting sketch for cloaks was easy, since they were mostly the backs. Drawing two trapezoids on her pages, she focused in on the first.

They were men's cloaks, so she wanted something fierce, something that would show off the man's toughness. Laying her pencil to one side, she shaded along the shoulders, fluffing them up with light strokes. Broad shoulders were always in, and in a shapeless cloak, they were easy to lose. A hard line was drawn at the neck, and a large hood was drawn in jagged strokes to evoke the fur. Something was needed for the back...a design of some kind. In the past, she'd done shapes and rough symbols, but she didn't think that would be in this year. On a whim, in an attempt to push an idea out, she drew two vertical lines down the middle of the back and imagined darker fur between them. The idea lasted for a brief moment before getting quickly erased - it looked like a skunk.

Irritated with herself that the idea wasn't coming quicker, she drew an X on the back, another attempt to draw without thinking. That idea wasn't working either, so she erased it. What could she do here? What could work with this cloak? Something tough, something that made a man look tough...

What about the rest of the animal?

There were always parts of the fur that weren't used and she paid the Stained Pelt up front to remove. But what if she could work them in here somehow? There was something primal about wearing one's kill and if anything could make a man look tough, it was that.

The idea narrowed her thoughts, but still didn't produce an idea. She couldn't very well just tack an entire fox pelt onto the back. She thought of trailing fox tails for a moment, but knew that large, trailing items weren't popular - they could get grabbed by something. It had to be sewn into the fur then. Frowning, she slowly began to sketch an animal's face between where the shoulder blades would sit. She didn't often draw animals in more detail than their silhouettes, so it was crude, but the idea was beginning to form. She would need to cut out that area of the fur - the skinned head couldn't just be sewn right on top. She'd also need to find some resin beads to fill in the eyes; the thought of an eyeless face on one's back made the idea a little too eerie. When the sketch was complete, Rosela's eyebrows raised as she looked at it. The hood would cover it when it was down, so it could be hidden if need be. The fur would have to be specifically cut to fit in properly, and she may have to put a couple stitches in the fur around it to force it to lay correctly to cover the seams. After all that though...it would work.

A glance at the pin, which was already leaning and threatening to fall, forced her to focus intently on the second trapezoid on the page. Here, however, her mind produced an idea easily, riding the juices from the first design. To the side, she drew an oval atop a pair of curving lines - a head and shoulders. On top of the head, she drew the same wolf's face, but now added fur lining under the snout and continuing down to encircle the face. It looked like, or was intended to look like, the wolf was biting down on the hood, so the thin skin of the head wasn't all that made up the hood itself. She wanted the wearer to be warm - it was hard to look tough when one was still cold wearing a cloak.

This left the back, which still needed something though most of the focus was on the hood. A box was drawn below the shoulders and quickly erased. A simple shape would be fine, something to evoke the rest of the wolf. A triangle was drawn in, two lines coming from mid shoulder to meet at the middle of the back. The fur inside would be of the same wolf on the hood, and the rest could be of some other shade, reddish perhaps.

As she was considering the colors, the pin dropped, startling her. Time was up, and she'd actually managed to succeed this time. Now that she knew she could successfully work in a time limit, she needed to improve on it.
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[Rosela]

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The pin was once again reset and Rosela got a fresh sheet of paper. This would be for accessories and she already had several ideas. Feeling ambitious after her victory with the last set, she mentally set her goal at four items in this pin-time.

The first came quickly, and had been on her mind from the start - loop scarves. They were her invention from...last year? Two years ago? It had been in response to the Champion of Ivak himself visiting her shop, though she hadn't known it was him at the time. Until then, she had been designing only casually for men, trying to just get them in and out the door and pouring her heart and soul into the women's fashions. Men were the majority of the city though, and she needed to cater to them. Hence, loop scarves, scarves that would keep the lower face and neck warm, but not leave the trailing ends of regular scarves that an enemy may grab ahold of.

Rather than draw a simple loop, she repeated the oval and lines of a head and neck and began drawing the curved lines of a bundle of fabric around the neck. It could also be drawn up over the back of the head, but that left the problem of hoods magnified - they easily fell down. She needed a way to keep them up, something simple that didn't interfere with the functionality of the whole thing. Ideas came sporadically and she briefly considered ear muffs, a drawstring inside the end, and sticky rubbed bits on the ends. None of it really worked though. She just needed to secure it to the head...

Incredulous it could be that simple, she drew a line around the crown of the head, drawing the scarf up over the head, under it. A couple small lines were added around the edge of the line to indicate it was securing the scarf there. It was reminiscent of a circlet, but instead of very womanly jewels to be added, this would be of leather. It somehow reminded her of the desert folk's attire, but she couldn't place why. Still, it would be far more fashionable than any of them ever were and she moved onto her next idea.

These were gloves, and fairly easy to make. A trio of crude, boxy hands were drawn, and outlined in black to indicate black gloves. She'd draw them each in black and simply make a note as to what colors should be available. The first pair was finished easily, adding a cuff of heavy black fur that extended down to cover the back of the hand with a small triangle. To the side, she made a couple notes in Common, so Hudon could read: black, black/brown, brown/cream, brown/light brown, black/midnight blue. She didn't get too crazy with men's colors, as they never seemed to sell.

The next pair of gloves took up more space as she added long lines that would lay along the forearms. These would be strictly leather so she kept the lines straight and neat to indicate so. Drawing a couple of lines next to it, she added a deep V to the middle, indicating that this would be the underside of the gloves, to allow for more flexibility. Paler lines were added around the seams, to make them accents instead of hidden, and she added a few color combinations to the side.

The third glove required some hesitation and she mentally ran through several glove designs before settling on one. An outline of fingerless gloves were drawn on top of the original outline of the hand, this time in brown. The original outline remained in black, creating an interesting effect. She'd never done multi-colored gloves this way before, but it looked quite stylish. They'd be a raging grassbear to sew, but she could get Hudon to do most of it.

Though she'd technically met her goal for number of designs, the pin had not yet dropped so she plowed forward, trying to get as far as possible.

A torso was drawn, and she criss-crossed it with brown straps, making an X first, and then adding a horizontal line across the belly. On the right side, opposite to where a right-handed swordsman would keep his sword, she added a rectangle of jagged lines - a fur lined bag. Being strapped to the side would keep it from flying around, and she could make it interchangeable so that lefties could switch it and keep it from crowding their sword as well. As she was shading in the flap, the pin dropped and startled her. Taking a deep breath, she looked at the page crowded with designs and smiled. She was getting better.
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[Rosela]

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Next up were leather accessories. She liked to keep them separate from regular ones since stamping and imprints were usually part of the design, making them very different to work on. The nature of her leather work often did not change - everyone always needed belts, they always needed aprons, they always needed vests. While fringe and other design elements could be added to spice them up, imprints were usually what needed the most work.

Deciding on four imprint designs, she set her pin and began to work.

Here, she hesitated. She'd done dozens of designs in the past - roses, horses, glassbeaks, feathers, people, handprints... Did she really need more? The imprint stamps weren't cheap to make and while she knew they added to her lineup, were they worth the effort? Now that time was becoming a commodity in her life, was it worth it to spend it here?

Deciding she would at least try, she put her pencil to the paper. She would revisit her ideas every now and then, but not spend the shop's budget on more stamps unless she needed it. Her mind caught on the budget, and she reminded herself to look at it sometime soon. Her mind then caught on lunch, and her stomach gave a noisy agreement.

Rosela shook her head and tried to focus. A good section of the candle above the pin was now gone and her page was still empty.

Her pencil arced uselessly, drawing a line that contained no idea. Only old ideas came to her and she tried to think in terms of subjects, not individual imprints, that she could work with. Something water-related...water flow? Fish? Bubbles? Bubbles wasn't an idea she tried before and she drew a handful of circles on the page, shading in the bottoms and leaving an arc at the top untouched for the highlight. She wasn't a huge fan of the idea and grimaced down at it. Still, at least she'd gotten an idea down and she moved to another section of the page.

Something involving the grass maybe, and she drew a series of gracefully bending lines to indicate grass. Like the bubbles, it wasn't a great idea. Moving closer to the page, she carefully drew in a rough Glassbeak hiding in the grass, redrawing some of the grass in front of it to emphasize the effect. Perhaps along the bottom of an apron or vest? The idea would be better than the bubbles, but extremely difficult to tool in, and she wasn't convinced the idea was worth the effort it would take to execute.

Moving to another section, she tried to think of another element. She had water and grass, perhaps earth? Or the sky? Running with an idea without really thinking about it, she drew a trio of fluffy clouds, realizing towards the end that the idea was awful. It was too whimsical for men, and too silly even for women. Perhaps it could be used for babies, but what baby would be dressed in leather? She didn't cross out the idea though and, glancing at the pin, attempted to get just one more design out.

She'd bypassed earth for sky, but was there any merit in an earth design? She'd done several earth-crawling creatures as well as a rough pebbly texture in the past, leaving very little for her to work with. She started shooting off ideas in her head rapidfire, looking for anything even worth drawing out.

Rocks, tunnels, ants, mud, puddles, sand, roots, fence posts, trails...

The only ideas that seemed any merit were ones she'd already done - trees, footprints, horseprints, etc. Growing more frustrated as she stared at the empty space on the sheet, the pin suddenly dropped and startled her to the point that she jumped and hit her knee on the underside of the table.

Angry at herself, she shoved the basin away from the candle, the pin rolling around inside. Even if she wasn't going to do any more imprint designs, she wanted to be able to fill the page with at least mediocre designs. Still rubbing her knee, she stood up, one hand unconsciously on her belly, and began to pace around the room as she stretched. There was no sense in getting frustrated. She needed to stay sharp and focused if she were going to get through this.
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[Rosela]

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The last thing she wanted to do before leaving for lunch was go over old designs. She had so many of them now that it seemed vastly easier to include updating old designs than exclusively create new ones.

She hesitated in setting the pin, wanting so much to relax and do her work at her leisure. It would completely defeat the purpose though, giving up now. She wanted - needed - to keep ahead of her time.

Pulling over the basin with a heavy heart, she reset the pin, deciding to aim for four designs. Even while giving in and acknowledging she needed the pin, she wanted to take it easy on herself and only aim for three, but she knew she needed to push herself if she were going to get better. The stack of old designs was produced from under the table and she began.

The first was extremely old, perhaps one of her very first winter designs. It was a sweater, plain as could be. Notes in old handwriting suggested colors off to the side. Frowning, she struck two color combinations off the list and refocused on the sweater itself. Something had to be added here, something to make it more...manly. More manly would mean displaying the man's figure more, but in a way more interesting than simply making it tighter. Humming to herself, she drew a triangle - a shape she seemed very partial to that day - along the front, indicating it would be cut out. It went from the hips to the lower chest, and left a wide gap. The gap obviously couldn't be left open, not in winter at least, so she colored in the underlying area. The new edges as well could not be left to flap open, so she added a pair of brown leather straps to hold it together. She considered having them horizontal, as horizontal stripes made the wearer look broader, but went with an X instead. It was more stylish and less likely to catch on something.

The next design wasn't that bad - it was a fine, double breasted coat. Notes were along the side to make it wool with black buttons for any color, which Rosela agreed with. Something about it was so...retro though. She couldn't put her finger on it. The length was fine, the cuffs, the spacing of the buttons, the wideness of the collar... Pausing, she frowned at the collar. That was exactly it. Wide lapels had been in a couple years ago, but were distinctly passe now. A quick erase and redraw of the lapels closer to the fold improved the design dramatically and, pleased with the fast fix, she moved it to the completed pile.

Feeling confident she could finish the last one in the time limit, she drew up a cloak design from the year prior. She knew why she never made this one and it wasn't for the design of the cloak itself. She'd added straps across the chest and back, on top of the cloak. It was an attempt to tame the cloak and make it more battle-wearable. The straps were above the waist though, having the unfortunate effect of making the cloak balloon out at the waist, giving it the look of a skirt. She'd already made a copy of this for the women's cloak line, and it had been a decent seller, but she wanted to try and make it work for the men. Holding up her hand, she visually shortened the cloak to thigh level and only saw a more dramatic flair at the waist. How could she make this work?

Several ideas ran through, including adding wires to force the cloak to lay straight down, adding weights to the bottom, and cutting it entirely up to the waist. The last idea stuck and she considered it for a moment. It would create something clearly not a cloak, but it would also be something to keep the upper body warm while avoiding any trailing ends. Erasing the bottom of the cloak, she added an additional outline under the straps, indicating a short hem would be there. The result was almost beast-like in the large back it simulated, but a small Akalak would appreciate the extra bulk. Still, it defeated a lot of the purpose cloaks had...

The pin rang out as it hit the basin, finally not startling Rosela. She didn't feel like the half-cloak idea was done yet, but she couldn't afford to spend bells working on an individual idea. Her knees cracked as she stood again, putting the page at the bottom of the 'old designs' pile. She'd eat something first and revisit the idea later.
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[Matthew]

Rosela

Experience Points:

• 5 Art (Fashion Design)
• 3 Drawing
• 1 Organization

Lores:

• Drawing: Leather Clothing Designs
• Fashion Design: Creating Original Clothing
• Fashion Design: Streaming the Sketching Process
• Fashion Design: Simple but Flexible Designs
• Fashion Design: Themed Clothing
• Fashion Design: Fur as a Base Material
• Medicine: Habits of Pregnancy
• Organization: Tracking Time with a Lit Candle and Pin

Additional Notes :

I thought the process of her thinking through and logically coming up with her own original designs and clothing ideas was a cool step, and very accuracy portrays how an Expert in Fashion Design should be able to slowly start evolving the industry. Good job.

If you have any questions or concerns relevant to your grade, don't be afraid to send me a private message so that we can work it all out! Please remember to mark your Grading Request as Graded.

A shout-out to Ollic Rimesage, who was kind enough to make this template for me.