Chapter 65
I’m translating the full chapter into the required HTML format now, keeping the prose natural and the special in-universe text in styled blocks where needed.CHAPTER_TITLE: The Dark Horse (3)
As Lee A-young left the Hongdae store, she felt a strange flutter somewhere deep in her chest.
The cold evening air brushed her face, and with it came the faces of the people who had come into the store throughout the day, one after another, choosing clothes for themselves.
“This fit is so pretty. Do you have a different size, not this one?”
“The color is really nice. I’m cool-toned, so maybe it won’t suit me? Wait, can you check?”
“Oh, this fabric feels amazing. I’ve never worn a sweatshirt this soft.”
One compliment after another, spoken by strangers, settled warmly in her heart.
They were the kind of words she would normally have let pass by without a second thought, but today they sounded unusually clear.
On the subway ride home, A-young stared out the window and fell into thought.
People wearing clothes she had designed, looking at themselves in them and smiling.
It was a feeling she was experiencing for the first time.
Joy, excitement, and a nervous kind of anticipation all tangled together.
I thought I had no talent...
When she got home, A-young spread her sketchbook out on the bed at once.
“You’re home and already at work? What are you doing?”
Her mother, who had the day off because of a shift change, called out to her.
“Just... working. You’re happy too, right? Your daughter’s a designer now?”
“Of course I am. Want me to peel you some fruit?”
“Yeah.”
A-young took a bite of the apple her mother handed her.
For some reason, the apple tasted even better than usual today.
Her mind felt as if it might do whatever she wanted, but when she picked up her pencil and tried to sketch again, the hand that normally moved so easily now felt strangely heavy.
She drew one line, erased it, drew another, erased that too, over and over.
“Why isn’t this working?”
Frustrated, she closed the sketchbook and turned on her phone.
The moment she opened SNS, her screen filled with photos of Han Saet-byeol wearing Lesser Factory clothes.
The comments had already passed several hundred.
- What brand is Han Saet-byeol wearing? The fit is gorgeous!
- It’s a brand called Lesser Factory. They have a store in Hongdae.
- The quality is amazing for the price T_T I ordered right away!
She lowered the phone and stared at the ceiling. Then a question suddenly struck her.
Why is my design popular?
She had never thought of the things she drew as anything special.
She had only drawn clothes she thought were pretty, and it was strange to see people reacting like this.
A-young set the phone down again and opened a notebook.
Color, fit, fabric, comfort...
She began writing down, one by one, the things customers had said, analyzing the qualities her designs possessed.
Then, all at once, she remembered what Jung Seung-hyun had said when he first created Lesser Factory.
Clothes that anyone can wear comfortably, but that don’t look cheap.
A-young slowly nodded, holding on to those words.
“Right... until now, I’d only thought about clothes that looked nice. I’ve never seriously thought about what kind of clothes I actually want people to wear.”
At that moment, it felt as if heat rushed through her whole body.
Clarity came over her, sharp and complete, as if she had finally found the missing piece of a long-lost puzzle.
Without warning, she decided to go out again.
“I need to head back out.”
She changed clothes once more and left the house, walking slowly along the streets of Hongdae.
It had once been a place where she came simply to have fun, but today she saw it differently.
She observed the clothes people wore as they passed by, jotting notes constantly in a small notebook.
At a cafe in the heart of Hongdae, seated by the window, she spent two hours watching the outfits of people walking past.
They were ordinary people, not celebrities, but each one was expressing themselves in their own way.
That jeans-and-T-shirt combination looks simple, but comfortable.
That dress isn’t flashy, but there’s something about it that naturally draws the eye.
The way that shirt is tailored is unusual. Even though it’s a plain piece, it has personality.
A-young found herself smiling without even realizing it.
She was newly aware that people expressed themselves through clothes in so many different ways.
And within that diversity, the thing she had been searching for began to come into focus.
Truly good clothes are clothes that make the person wearing them stand out.
By the time evening had deepened, A-young returned home and opened her sketchbook at once.
This time, her pencil moved across the paper without hesitation.
She drew not merely clothes that were pretty, but clothes that made a person feel comfortable and confident when wearing them.
Colors that were not flashy, but glowed with a quiet depth.
Silhouettes that did not confine the body, but naturally brought out its shape.
Details that were not complicated, but drew the eye by placing emphasis in just the right spot.
Without even noticing the night growing deeper, A-young kept sketching.
Even when her hand hurt and her eyes grew tired, she could not stop.
At last, just as dawn light began to spill across the window, new-style sketches were piled high all around her room.
“I think I get it now...”
Looking at the completed sketches, A-young murmured to herself.
Then she let out a long breath and collapsed onto the bed.
In the morning, A-young made her way to the Haesol Textile office, a little nervous and a little excited.
Seung-hyun was working on something on his laptop, and when she came in, he looked up.
“A-young, what’s up? Aren’t you supposed to be at the Lesser Factory office today?”
Now that Lesser Factory was fully up and running, A-young no longer commuted to the main factory where the headquarters were.
She was always supposed to go to the Lesser Factory office, work there as the lead designer, and inspect the quality of the clothes.
But today, A-young took out the sketchbook she had brought and said carefully, “CEO, I... tried making some new designs.”
“Already? No, you’ve only been selling the existing designs for a few days...”
Seung-hyun took the sketchbook with a curious expression.
“I’m not saying we should launch them right away. I just wanted to show you what I think I should be making from now on, and talk it through with you.”
Finding her words entirely reasonable, Seung-hyun slowly turned the pages and studied A-young’s new designs.
At first his face was expressionless, but gradually interest began to surface in his eyes.
“You drew all of this... last night?”
A-young nodded.
“Yes. I saw the customers choosing clothes at the store yesterday and... I think I realized something.”
Seung-hyun examined the final page carefully before setting the sketchbook down.
“What did you realize?”
A-young hesitated for a moment, choosing her words carefully before speaking.
“CEO, this time I want to make clothes that don’t just look pretty, but clothes that make people feel at ease. Clothes that make the person wearing them feel confident and let them spend their day a little happier.”
Listening to her, a satisfied smile spread across Seung-hyun’s face.
“Wow... A-young, that sounds like something a real designer would say. I really like it.”
At his response, A-young let out a breath of relief.
“Then... can I turn these designs into a new line?”
Seung-hyun nodded.
“Of course. This isn’t just clothing, it’s design shaped by your own philosophy. I think this could be a great starting point for Lesser Factory’s next stage. Not that we’re putting it on the racks and selling it right this second, of course. Let’s prepare it slowly. We still need to see how customers respond.”
At his words, A-young’s eyes shone.
“Really? Thank you, CEO!”
Seung-hyun opened the sketchbook again and said, “Want to pick out a few designs to start with? Let’s begin with sample work.”
A-young nodded, her face bright with happiness.
Now she felt as though she was taking her first real step forward as the true designer of Lesser Factory.
*
At last, the summer season of the golf wear market began in earnest.
The two golf wear brands that had been preparing for fierce competition all along, Taesung Apparel’s VEANT and Hanil Global’s MOTIONE-X, began battling hard for early sales exactly as expected.
In the executive conference room at Hanil Global’s headquarters in Gangnam, Seoul, a large screen displayed a sharp upward graph showing MOTIONE-X’s rise.
At the start of the season, the mood around MOTIONE-X was very bright.
Early sales surged ahead overwhelmingly, leaving VEANT far behind, and the atmosphere inside Hanil Global was practically celebratory.
That much had been clear.
The head of marketing had said with great confidence that MOTIONE-X’s victory was all but certain, and that the strategy aimed at younger consumers had landed exactly as intended.
But that optimistic mood did not last long.
As July arrived, strange signs began to appear.
MOTIONE-X’s sales growth suddenly slowed, and not long after that, the sales graph actually began to fall.
“What is going on?”
President Jeong Man-sik frowned as he looked over the weekly report.
“Why are sales suddenly dropping?”
The head of marketing answered with a troubled expression, “It may just be temporary, but word is VEANT is going through the same thing.”
“So everything’s bad, then?”
“Yes. Not just Taesung Apparel, but the entire golf wear market is on a downward trend.”
The executives began to murmur, and President Jeong Man-sik recalled something Jung Seung-hyun of Haesol Textile had said before.
The prediction that MOTIONE-X’s premium lines would all stall because of the slump.
Jeong Man-sik let out a long sigh and said, “It must be the recession. It means consumers are cutting back on clothing purchases in general.”
“Looks like it... Sales of MOTIONE-X’s high-end lines have fallen sharply, and only the cheaper line is still holding up.”
It was unfolding exactly as Seung-hyun of Haesol Textile had said it would.
At the time, they had brushed that prediction off lightly, but looking at the situation now, it had been dead on.
A chill ran down Jeong Man-sik’s spine.
President Jung saw this coming all along...
He was irritated with himself for underestimating Seung-hyun, and at the same time impressed by Seung-hyun’s astonishing insight.
“The problem is the inventory of MOTIONE-X we produced expecting sales to keep rising. If the economy doesn’t recover, it could end up as dead stock.”
“Find a way to move it overseas. We need to find one as quickly as possible and minimize the losses.”
“Understood.”
“Ah, and another thing.”
“Yes?”
As he sat there with a deep frown, thinking hard, Executive Director Han Se-gyeol casually brought up the subject.
“Are you thinking about President Jung Seung-hyun?”
Realizing he’d been read, Jeong Man-sik frowned.
“You really are like a ghost...”
“At this point, that’s what I’m thinking too. Maybe when Haesol Textile said it would cut production, it was because they had already predicted MOTIONE-X’s sales would decline...”
“Isn’t that going too far?”
“Well, yes, I suppose it is.”
“...Still, I’m curious. What is Haesol Textile doing these days? Not long ago Mirae Department Store’s Cha Hee-ju tried contacting them about bedding, but are they still just making bedding now?”
As though he had been waiting for that question, Executive Director Han Se-gyeol replied, “I looked into it. They launched a mid-range fashion brand called Lesser Factory.”
“A mid-range fashion brand? Out of nowhere?”
“Yes. And it seems Miss Cha Hee-ju helped make the connection, because she had Han Saet-byeol wear the clothes and post them on SNS. Judging by the comments and the questions piling up on the official website, they’re probably screaming under the flood of orders by now.”
Jeong Man-sik’s face twisted hard.
“What the hell. We, a conglomerate, are taking it on the chin, while the guys who used to sell hemp shoes are making money?”
“That’s about right.”
Jeong Man-sik hated the look of quiet amusement on Han Se-gyeol’s face and curled the corner of his mouth down in irritation.
“You think this is funny? We’re the ones eating dirt here.”
“You were asking because you were curious too, President. So anyway,”
“Yeah?”
“If we’re talking about those guys playing around, bedding is going overseas too, and sofa fabric is being exported as well. Then...”
“You mean that red panda thing or whatever it is will get exported too?”
“If they’re the sort of people who used to sell hemp shoes, wouldn’t it take some effort for them to go abroad? Especially in Southeast Asia. And for the record, it’s not ‘Red Panda,’ it’s Lesser Factory.”
“Same difference.”
Even as he said that, Jeong Man-sik fell silent, his face serious, lost in thought.
Then he spoke to Han Se-gyeol, who still looked far too pleased with himself.
“That Lesser Panda or whatever it is... send me a report on it.”
Han Se-gyeol gave a slight grin.
“Understood.”
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