In fashion

   Every single night, Maddie Compton would fix every single piece of clothing she had been able to find in the second hand stores she visited that week. Sometimes they weren’t even fashion stores but places where she could buy the fabric she liked the most and modify it enough to create something no one had ever wore before. She had the advantage of having a great eye for design and a great taste in clothing. After all, she read all the magazines she could get her hands on, for free of course.

 Maddie was not a wealthy woman but she pretended to be, going to the most prestigious parties with the elite of the city. Many loved her designs and praised her for it. She even got some friends during those parties but the truth was that she had accepted the fact she couldn’t’ really get too close to anyone. Realizing that she was not who she said she was wouldn’t have been too hard for someone close to her, so she tried hard not to overstay her welcome in such events.

 She had made some mistakes in the past, as going out after with a guy she had met at the party. It would normally be a one-night stand, as she would escape the room as silently as she could and then leave to her life far away from the skyscrapers and lovely apartments those people had. Sometimes it was really hard for her, because she really wanted to be like them. She wanted that life which was certainly much easier than her own. She wanted to feel people cared about who she was.

 Of course, Maddie knew many of the people she met in those parties were not fully honest with her but it wasn’t possible that among so many people there wasn’t at least one person that actually liked what she did. One of her ideas at first had been to find someone willing to give her money to design dresses for some brand, at least as a test. They were certainly the type to do that but it came to be much more difficult than what she had anticipated. Rich people were too in love with themselves.

 To be fair, she was too. Maddie was the kind of woman that always looks at her own reflection on the mirror in the morning and then several more times during the day. She couldn’t avoid taking pictures of herself and it wasn’t even to share with friends or family, it was just to take a look at herself and try to reinforce some weird acceptance of her own being in her brain. She knew she needed people’s approval to feel she had made it and that’s why she had gone after the opinions of people who mattered, the ones that had money and could take decisions.

 The young woman had made several dresses and then she would sell them in the same stores she bought the ones that she modified and turned into sensations. Many store owners were very grateful for what she did because many of her designs sold very well with younger women that wanted something different to wear at an affordable price. It was the only way for her to make some money, besides working some days in a call center, helping with pizza deliveries from around the world.

 Maddies wanted to live of her designs. That or get one of those rich men to make her a rich woman through marriage but that was a lot trickier because she would began their life together by lying at that was never the best way to initiate a new relationship. Luckily, none of the guys she had dated had ever asked too much about her. Most men her age were too focused on themselves and their own achievements to even ask about what she really wanted out of life.

 It wasn’t the life she would have wanted for herself but it was the one she had and the one that made sense. She needed to insist on her only talent and if making clothes were the way to go, she would try it as long as she could. She made a very small amount of money out of it but it was the only activity that clamed her down and made her feel the world is not as awful as one would think it is, at least sometimes. The sound of her machine was the perfect way to distract her brain.

 It was the exact opposite of the parties she attended where most people were vicious and just loved to tear others apart, especially the women. Maybe it was because they had always been under appreciated, even when they were such wealthy people, but the ladies could be savage with newcomers and when the tastes of others didn’t match what was generally accepted. Maddie had to check all that out before going out to one of those events, in order to be praised but never mocked.

 She was very successful that way. She even decided to learn a bit more about make up and how to achieve a complete look that would fool anyone. She would imitate looks from magazines or inspire herself from those, with her cheap fabrics and dresses and accessories she practically remade herself. She always laughed alone in her apartment, thinking that if a policeman found her there he would think she was managing the least successful pirating ring ever. She did it all perfectly but always in a very small scale, in order not to attract the wrong attention.

 After a very long time trying to make it, Maddie finally attracted the right person for what she wanted to do. Her name was Emilia Gobstone and she was one of the wealthiest women in the city. She had an amazing apartment where many parties were held, having appeared in numerous occasions in many magazines. She fell in love with Maddie and one of her dresses and asked the young woman to make her and her daughters the same dress for a special party in a country club.

 Maddie did as asked and Mrs. Gobstone could not have been happier. The fabric Maddie had used was one of the best she had ever worked with, spending a very large sum to get it. But she knew she needed the best to be successful with that particular request. She was right. The wealthy woman was so happy, that she paid double what they had agreed on in the first place and asked Maddie to make her clothes for every event in the fall season that was getting nearer by the minute.

 With such a success, she decided to retire from going to parties and such and focus more on her dresses and their quality. From the point of view of her craft, she had made the best choice. However, many people wondered where she had left to and it was then when they found out who she really was. Everyone made fun of her in social media, posting pictures they had with her and telling the most awful stories about her. Some were based on things she had said, but they all twisted her words and some were only lies.

 She finished her work on Mrs. Gobstone’s dresses and wrote her a letter apologizing for everything. She sent her creations and the letter one afternoon and then decided to leave the city for a while, needing some fresh air, something she wouldn’t be able to get in such a city, which felt a little bit too crowded sometimes. She grabbed a suitcase, put some of her clothes and just left, trying not to think too much about everything that had happened in the last few years. 

 To her surprise, Mrs. Gobstone’s personal butler found her in her parent’s home, many kilometers away from the city. He told her his mistress needed her urgently and that it couldn’t wait. Maddie accepted the ride and, a few hours later, she was in the woman’s apartment.

 There, the socialite gave her a check to pay for her dresses and told her she wouldn’t be able to hire her again. However, she could do something else for her, as a personal way to thank her for her work. The following week, an specialized magazine called Maddie, in order to arrange an interview.