Madeline
“This is not what I asked for,” Adrian looked at herself in the mirror. A large lace bow stretched from shoulder to shoulder. The bow held her cleavage but was barely wide enough to cover her nipples. The tulle from the dress was hemmed right below her knees. And the sleeves ran all the way to the tips of her fingers with a hole for her thumb.
“I look like a child cupcake,” she pouted. The color was all wrong too. It was pink! Pink! Not off white, like she requested. It was salmon pink. Her wedding was in two days. This was a disaster.
It all started when Adrian was a young girl in a suburb outside of Ohio. She wanted to be a fashion designer from the moment her mother turned on the television to watch Project Runway. It became a weekly ritual, she would sit on the couch with her very pregnant mother and they would root on Christian Siriano.
From there her taste for fashion grew. She started buying Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar with money she earned from baby sitting her little sister. She would pine over the fashions each month and post her favorites on her bedroom wall, replacing but not discarding the images of last season’s fashions.
When Adrian applied to college, her parents refused to pay for fashion school telling her, “there is no money in fashion.” She strongly disagreed, but they wanted her to be practical. They urged her to go to Ohio State and become an accountant, which both her parents did for a living and “didn’t they do well? They could afford to pay for her college after all.”
It was in college that Adrian discovered Pierre Mountblac. One of his wedding gowns was featured in one of the fashion magazines she skipped a meal in order to afford to purchase it. Wedding gowns were never her fashion interest. But at that moment she didn’t know who she was going to marry, but she knew that she would be wearing a custom Pierre Mountblac.
Then Adrian met Alexander at the accounting firm she audited for. They kept the relationship quiet at first, but when she moved to the firm across the street, they did not make it public, but it also was not a secret.
For their one year anniversary, they vacationed in Maui. They found a cute little hotel a few blocks from the beach and it was on that beach that he popped the question. She thought about how much she loved Alexander, then about how much she loved the Tiffany diamond in the tiny teal box in front of her, and then about how much she loved the custom Pierre Mountblac dress she would wear to their wedding.
From the second Alexander proposed she scrimped and saved for the wedding dress of her dreams. Her parents would pay for the wedding, but as for the dress, her parents could not afford the fancy French designer Adrian knew she wanted to wear.
She bought the cheapest ticket she could find to Paris and booked a hotel a ten minute walk from the Pierre Mountblac atelier. She decided to go solo as this trip was strictly business. The plan was to fly to Paris and fly right back home two days later.
On the morning of her appointment, she bought a croissant and a coffee a block away from the atelier and appeared at the stark white nondescript building one minute early.
She rang the doorbell as instructed. She didn’t know what to wear to a French atelier and opted for a Chanel suit she found on Ebay. It had a rip on the cuff that exposed the white lining and a stain on the pink woven skirt. But Adrian was certain that if someone didn’t look too close, they would never notice.
“Bonjour,” a woman greeted Adrian after opening the nondescript door.
“Bomjourney,” Adrian responded, “I have an appointment. For Adrian Smith.”
“Ah, welcome. My name is Collette and I will be assisting with your fitting and translating for you today. Please, come in.” The woman opened the door wide and opened a palm to welcome Adrian into the building. As Adrian followed the woman up the steep wooden steps she noticed the woman’s attire. She wore black cigarette pants, a black cashmere sweater, and black ballerina flats. Her chestnut hair was pulled back into a low and sleek ponytail. The woman was simple yet elegant and Adrian suddenly felt overdressed for the occasion.
“Monsieur Mountblac does not speak a lick of English, but don’t worry. I am here to help with that. Have a seat and Monsieur Mountblanc will be out in a moment. Would you like some champagne while you wait?”
Adrian gave a tight lipped smile and nodded her head, “that would be lovely.” And then kicked herself for sounding like an old lady trying to impress the queen rather than a sophisticated woman about to get married.
The room was large and bare except for a handful of mannequin forms dressed with white wedding gowns. The floors were oak and the bare walls were white. In the center of the room a runway ran about twenty feet long and about six inches off the ground. At the beginning of the walkway stood mirrors at various angles.
Adrian sipped her champagne while she waited. She wondered what Pierre Mountblanc would be like. Would he be friendly? Or would he be rude? Will he like her ideas? Or will he not give her an ounce of creativity?
Suddenly, a small man appeared speaking in a language Adrian didn’t recognize but figured was French. He was waving his arms around as Collette followed him back into the room. He stood no taller than five feet tall. His hair was combed back hiding an evident bald spot at the crown of his head and a thinning pencil mustache sat directly above his top lip. He wore a black slacks with black suspenders over a white button up shirt. There was a yellow tape measure around his neck. And other than the pink Chanel suite and the tape measure, the only bit of color in the room was his bright red ascot.
“Hi, I’m Adrian. I am a huge fan of your work.” Adrian grinned at the tiny man and held her hand out to Pierre Mountblac.
Ignoring the hand, Pierre turned to Collette and without taking a breath continued in French. When he stopped Colette turned to Adrian.
“Come stand here,” Colette said motioning for Adiran to step onto the end of the platform catwalk.
Pierre took the measuring tape from around his neck and lined it up along Adrian’s right arm than her left. Pierre shouted something in French and Collette took note.
“Doesn’t he want to know what I would like?” Adrian asked.
“Of course. I will translate,” Colette continued to write and Pierre continued to measure.
“I would like something sleek and form fitting. But not too sexy. Something tasteful.”
Collette translated Adrian’s requests in a few French words to Pierre and Pierre said something back and then Collette nodded for Adrian to continue.
“And nothing white, because… you know… I’m not a virgin,” Adrian blushed as Collette repeated what Adrian said in French. The right side of Pierre’s lip curled up. Adrian was unsure if what she said was funny or if Collette made a remark that made Pierre smirk.
“I’m not a fan of lace or bows,” Colette spoke French. Pierre raised an eyebrow, looked at Adrian and then nodded.
“Also, I know it’s not very modest of me but I long for something sleeveless. And to the floor. I’m thinking 1950’s Hollywood inspired.” When Collette spoke two words and Pierre nodded. “Make sure you tell him about the Hollywood part,” Adrian urged.
Colette smiled, “I did.” She said in her thick French accent.
The conversation continued like this, Adrian providing what she was looking for, Colette translating in what Adrian thought was shorter than her description, and Pierre making a comment or two while he measured.
When the fitting was done, Colette gave Adrian specific instructions. Once the custom dress was finished two days before the wedding, it would be sent to a sister atelier in New York. It was close enough to her home in Ohio that she could drive, get a final fitting and take the dress home the next day. The schedule was tight, but Colette assured Adrian the dress would be ready in time for her Cleveland wedding.
Once she got home and she returned to her normal life, Adrian marked the days off in her calendar. She told everyone she was excited for the wedding, but really it was the dress she was counting the days down for.
Finally, the day of the fitting came. Adrian, her mother, her little sister, and her best friend, Cassy, squeezed into the blue Honda Corolla.
That night in the New Jersey hotel, Adrian could not sleep. She tossed and turned all night, bumping Cassy as she laid awake dreaming of her wedding dress. In the morning, she woke and hurried the group out to the car, through the Lincoln Tunnel and into the Chelsea atelier.
The pink cupcake that Adrian had been squeezed into fit her like a glove. But it was not the dress she described to Pierre Mountblanc. Or more specifically, what she described to Collette.
“This is not what I asked for,” Adrian repeated to the seamstress.
“You’re right, it’s a little bit more avant-garde than Pierre Mountblanc usually makes. Let’s see. Pierre Mountblanc always includes a description of the garment with the shipment. He does it as a souvenir.” The seamstress pulled out a white envelope and unfolded the paper that was tucked inside. “Here it is! It says here “Adrian Smith asked for a wedding dress that is not sexy, has lace and bows, not white, likes pink, and long sleeves.” The seamstress turns the paper over. “Hmmm… That’s it. Usually it’s longer than that.”
By now, Adrian’s eyes were about to bulge out of her head. “That bitch didn’t translate everything I said.” Adrian grasped the cupcake skirt with both hands and brought it up to her face as if she was going to rip it in two, “Colette!”
