“Please. Now let’s get back to Siena’s plans. I can’t wait to be outfitted head to toe in Vivian Blackwood! Do they make short sizes? Ugh, vertically-challenged sizes,” J.J. said with a nod to Aunt Emma.
“We can get you swathed in the chicest things we’ve got. No worries.”
“It would be a step up from the t-shirt and jeans she wears every single day of the year.” Aunt Emma said, and J.J. didn’t disagree.
“I just don’t want to get hair dye on the good stuff. It would be a shame to ruin couture.”
“We’re not couture.”
“Well, youarefancy. Fancier than anything we’ve had around here since they opened Kohl’s in Adrian.”
Siena wasn’t sure if J.J. was serious or joking.
“Yeah, that’s my worry,” Emma said.
“Worry?” Siena replied.
“Never mind, you were saying?”
They finished lunch while Siena explained her big plans. But all of a sudden, she was a little worried too.
ChapterTwelve
Viv
“Hack.” Viv looked at her sketch. The lines were clean. The jacket was sleek. There was nothing really wrong with the new idea she’d created for Vivian Blackwood Designs, but there was nothing right with it either.
She’d been in her room sketching and then on the little balcony, and now, she sat on the porch of the Two Lakes Grove and assessed the last four hours of work.
At least it wasn’t a mass of black scribbling. Maybe that was progress.
But it wasn’t going to change the world.
Vivian had changed the world, well, a little corner of it, once.
Her first line of clothing had turned career-wear on its ear.
Women in the workplace in the nineties and early two-thousands were dressed like men. There were structured blazers and matching pantsuits.
That slid into the Ally McBeal era. The popularity of the show with a lawyer in micro-mini skirts had women in the real world trying to copy the look. There was no happy medium. You either wore a “power suit,” or you were yanking on a skirt that was riding up while you tried to give a presentation.
Women who wanted to be fashionable but professional, pretty but powerful, didn’t have a lot of choices.
That’s where Vivian Blackwood Designs filled the gap.
She had created a layered silhouette with skirts that came to the knee but also skimmed the body to avoid boxiness. She’d designed softer duster-style jackets to layer over the top. Vivian Blackwood Designs took off like a rocket for women who worked in banks, law firms, school administration, and even those breaking corporate glass ceilings. She was the go-to tastemaker.
She was in touch with the women of her generation. There were magazine interviews, and she’d even been featured on the breakfast shows in New York.
Viv was never blocked or stumped on what to design. She thought of Libby’s lanky frame and her innate grace. She was guided by what made her feel pulled together in her own big meetings and presentations. And her pencil flew over her sketch book year after year. She layered new pieces in new colors, but her clothes were timeless. A woman could keep that skirt or jacket, or blouse for years and update it with the latest Vivian Blackwood piece or accessory. It wasn’t fast fashion; it was the opposite.
But truth be told, sales had gotten softer. Even before her cancer, there were fewer department stores picking up the designs. Her clothes weren’t a new idea anymore. Viv didn’t have the sense that she knew what people wanted to wear to look professional. Had she gotten too old to do this? Had the industry and style passed her by?
Now, trying to freshen them up, after all she’d been through, felt like drawing with her opposite hand. The ease she once had was gone.
Maybe the need was gone too. A woman in her twenties entering the workforce today didn’t need or want the classic Vivian Blackwood look.
Today’s workplace was casual, open to just about anything, and half the time, the big meeting was in a Zoom call, not a board room.
