Bring Me the Designer
“So why did you bring this to me?”
At Leona’s question, Gilbert opened his mouth with care.
“The young master has been watching both Park Jihoon and the select shop very closely. The two of them have taken turns… stimulating him.”
Stimulating was a thoroughly sanitized word. Put honestly, even “he’s been throwing every kind of fit” would have fallen short.
“But if those two things were to overlap into one, I couldn’t begin to guess how he would react.”
“So you’ve been doubting my boy’s self-control.”
“Th-that isn’t quite—”
At Gilbert’s answer, the corner of Leona’s mouth lifted.
“A moment like this seems to call for an apology, don’t you think?”
“I’m sorry.”
Leona opened the magazine again.
“A select shop.”
“……”
“A select shop is nothing but a department store cut down to the size of a corner shop. Isn’t that so?”
Whether the question wanted an answer or not, she went straight on.
“You called it a shop-in-shop.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t let them out of that store.”
“Ma’am?”
“Even if they want to grow, see to it they can’t get into anywhere better. Arrange it.”
“Understood.”
“One more thing.”
She opened the magazine and pointed to a single outfit.
Fetch. Carl had used that same word. He was fairly sure of it.
“He must be quite talented. Don’t you think he’s sick of lodging in someone else’s shop? Do well there, and the best he can hope for is a derelict factory. And you’re going to block even that, aren’t you?”
“But if he already has a contract with Park Jihoon…”
“Tell him we’ll hand over an entire first-floor shop in the luxury hall. Anyone would waver at that. We’ll cover the penalty, and his salary will be double what he makes now.”
“……”
“What? Even looking after him to this extent, you still can’t bring him in?”
There was only one reason the answer came late. Mother and son had been cast from the same mold, right down to the way they spoke.
“N-no. I will recruit him. Without fail.”
Gilbert bowed deeply, then slipped out of Leona’s office.
Meanwhile, Tennessee and I had left the classroom.
First period was about to start, but neither of us cared.
Step. Step.
Was it a promise to keep a secret? Tennessee checked that no one was nearby, then asked, carefully.
“It’s yours, isn’t it?”
“……”
“From the magazine all the way to the shop. It’s yours, right?”
Instead of answering, I asked why he thought so. Tennessee drew a D-Que card from the inner pocket of his uniform.
“I wondered what an unreleased sample was doing in a select shop. So I looked into it.”
“And?”
A house like the Grosvenors could get hold of information on that scale easily enough. I waited, calm, for whatever came next.
“Remember running into each other by chance in front of Sir Lewis’s shop?”
I nodded.
“You were wearing the clothes from the magazine. By rights you ought to have been the first customer—and then the magazine goes and certifies that I was first.”
Well. Sharper than I’d expected. Again I gave him no answer, only a steady look. He hadn’t come to show off his deduction, and blackmail—some threat to expose the secret—was even less likely.
Then why bring it up at all?
Right then, he produced an answer I hadn’t seen coming.
“Want to go into business together?”
Huh?
“What? Am I not allowed to invest?”
It wasn’t that he couldn’t. It was just too far out of nowhere.
I asked slowly, partly to get my thoughts in order.
“So you’ve taken quite an interest in fashion.”
“No. Not fashion.”
“……?”
Oh, for— Until a moment ago Tennessee had been playing the sharpest mind alive. This time even he looked sheepish. Not fashion, he says. I had to smother a laugh.
“As you know, House Grosvenor has prized territory for generations… but in a new century, land alone can hardly be called territory… Investing in cultural works with the spirit of someone opening a new continent—that is the course worthy of a ducal house…”
Saying things he didn’t mean had made him truly long-winded. Even so, for the sake of the mood, I offered a faintly agreeing look. When he nodded, his blond hair swayed with elegance.
“I appreciate the offer, but I don’t particularly need an investment at this point.”
“……?”
“If it’s money, I have plenty of my own.”
It wasn’t a line meant to talk up my price. With the business already on its rails, what further investment did I need? Had he roughly guessed as much? Tennessee let out a sigh.
Staying where he was after his business was finished could only be regret, plain and simple. I held his gaze and asked.
“Of course.”
“You mean to plant a flag on that land?”
“Obviously.”
“Mm. The truth is, there’s something I need more than money.”
At my words, a thin light rose in his eyes.
Time was on my side.
Day by day, the students’ reaction to Queensman climbed higher. Perhaps because it had become the whole school’s favorite read—if you could call it that. Land a photograph in the magazine and you were, quite literally, a celebrity.
I was on Regent Street all weekend and confirmed the shooting a few times.
Pretty sure the reporter picks up whoever catches his eye on the way home from work. Best guess for clocking out is between 7 and 8 p.m.
From what I saw, he talks to people with a real look more than people who are simply well dressed.
If you want your picture taken, I recommend planting yourself on Regent, Piccadilly, or Shaftesbury Avenue.
The camera was a Leica, by the way. Green leather strap around his neck. If you spot it, just sidle over. Yeah.
Thanks to that post, the moment weekend evenings hit seven, students poured out onto the famous streets. Dressed to the nines, with no particular aim, they drifted along in search of a Leica on a green strap. A few of them truly did catch Lukashi’s eye and became models.
The more reviews piled up, the more people were bound to plant themselves on those streets. And that wasn’t the only change. Once the latest issue carried a sizable hint about the shop, everyone and their cousin learned where Queensman was.
Students raced one another to the door, and every last piece of stock vanished in a flash. Fierce protests poured in, of course.
“You only made thirty?”
“Are you trying to do business, or trying not to?”
Thanks to that, we had to raise production fivefold. Even that much was enough to cover the whole student body.
But!
As time passed, ordinary customers began to swarm in as well. Plenty of people looking, and no stock to be had. Was it the vicious imbalance of supply and demand?
The more the rumors piled on, the more the shop front became a festival at the gates. Perhaps the sight of people camping just to buy a single garment was too strange to ignore. Starting with the local papers, even the major outlets sent reporters. By then, even the older generation—numb to fashion—was bound to react.
“What on earth is it?”
“What’s got everyone in such a frenzy?”
And so we became famous for being famous.
Deep night.
Paver dragged his exhausted body home again. The mission was a new design every week. It had been a pleasure at first; now it was starting, little by little, to weigh on him.
Had he run out of ideas?
Not a chance.
Paver’s ideas were like a spring that never ran dry. Multiply the workload several times over and the volume still wouldn’t tire him. Only—
“……”
The trouble was that the response was too good. Once people began to rave over every little thing, the burden grew before he noticed. What if he disappointed them? What if they said it was worse than before? The heavier his shoulders became, the longer he sat blank in front of the desk.
He was sunk in thoughts of that sort when he stepped into the hotel.
“Mr. Paver.”
A clerk who recognized him took a document envelope from a drawer.
“I was asked to pass this along to you.”
“By whom?”
“They said you’d know when you saw it…”
“You’re certain it was sent to me?”
The clerk answered, clear and careful, as if checking once more.
“It says to deliver it to Mr. James Paver, from New York.”
Back in his room, he showered first. Then he poured whiskey into a large glass. These days sleep wouldn’t come at all without a drink. He knocked it back in great gulps—neat, no water, the big glass emptied in a single go.
London’s night streets lay beyond the window. Out there, quite a few people must have been wearing clothes he had made. They had loved them well enough so far, somehow.
“Hm.”
It was just after Paver grimaced and pushed himself up that the envelope, tossed any which way on the bed, finally caught his eye. The first piece of mail he had received since coming to stay at the hotel. Paver read the words written on it.
Clifford Brookhouse
Clifford Brookhouse? This was a law firm. He’d let a card payment slip a little while living in New York, but he’d paid it off the moment he had the money. Puzzled, he opened the envelope, and a thin folder came out. Inside were a few sheets.
A headhunter, was it? It was a kind of offer to change jobs.
The Guccio shop on the first floor of the Harris luxury hall is to be removed for insufficient sales.
James Paver is invited to take its place.
At first he thought it was a joke. Get a little attention from the press and every sort of impersonator comes crawling out of the woodwork. The first floor of the luxury hall—and replace Guccio, no less.
“Does that even make sense?”
The drink was rising in him, and he was about to shove the papers aside and sleep. But the business card inside snapped him wide awake.
Astonishingly, the card had been finely worked in gold.