I went back to the studio and cleared my calendar. I told my two clients I needed two weeks. I told no one else anything.
Then I started making the dress.
It took me six days. I cut the muslin first, adjusted the darts, re-draped the bodice, rebuilt the waist. I chose a different silk, a heavier one, in a color that was not ivory but not quite white either, something closer to bone. I lined it in silk crepe. I finished the seams by hand. I made it for myself, and I made it for the version of myself I had been trying to become.
On the seventh day, I tried it on.
It fit. Not because I had lost weight, not because I had changed my body, but because I had built it for my body. The bodice was structured at the waist. The hip was clean. The train pooled at my feet like cream. It was the dres
