Ms. Kang Hyewon

Thread isn’t claustrophobic. It slips through spaces not even your fingernail could pierce apart. Effortlessly, too. It isn’t afraid of being knotted up. It just needs guidance: a pinch to lead it through the eye and a pull to seam it through the hem.

You wish you wielded the same fearlessness. It’s thinner and more fragile than you (highly debated) yet it’s hardened to its life. The only thing you’re granted as a similarity to it is the need for guidance, not all of that shit about courage.

Maybe that’s why you became a fashion designer.

Needles have their own strengths, too. They’re not cowards to inflicting pain for aesthetics. Why do you think they stab so effortlessly through fabric and silk and skin and whatnot? They sharpen themselves through softness, and all that edge goes straight into the process.

And sometimes, your fingers.

“Fuck.” Your reverie is broken at last. From your thumb, a trail of red leaks. You’re used to the minor cuts and wounds, but the blood really does something to you. It reminds you of how fragile human anatomy is. One uncalculated move can end it all.

“You good?” asks Eunbi.

Suck on your thumb. A metallic taste settles over your tongue. She peers at you curiously; wave your hand at her dismissively to tell her it’s fine. This is everyday for you, like you said. Your heart will pump anxiously but that goes away, too. It’s all a vestige of time.

Flatten the vest top on the table. Wait, it’s not exactly a top yet if fringes of thread splay from the edges. You still have to work on that. Nothing is something when it’s not completed. It’s either you finish it grandly or leave it in pathetic tatters.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Just a little nervous,” you reply.

“I mean,” Eunbi laughs as she fixes her short hair into a ponytail, “she is Kang Hyewon.”

Not that she needs to remind you. Your nerves are in a wreck already. You’ve been replaying the pros of the situation in your head like a favorite song. Working for Hyewon would look good in your resumés. If time sees fit, you’d have your own line and everyone would want to wear it. Your name could be a staple of fashion, the god of gods. Something like that.

It only sucks that you’re painfully new to this world. This is the first time you’re this far from your family and friends. Seoul’s a far cry from your humble town. It’s the home of everything that matters. Nights of staying up drawing and designing couldn’t harden you for an industry that sways and shakes out the unfit.

This is your chance to find out if you’re one of them.

“The superstar who’s about to wear my shitty clothes.”

“They’re anything but shitty. You have seriously good ideas.” Always, Eunbi comes in to reassure you. That’s why you see her as a mentor. “She wouldn’t turn down wearing couture if she didn’t see potential in what you make.”

See, you would never have agreed to any of this. You’re a fresh graduate from some fashion school, and the only models you’ve worked on are the runway rejects. Fixing a sloppy first draft on a stick-thin, soulless girl is different from designing and dressing up Kang Hyewon.

She’s everything—model, actress, singer, and idol. She’s a gem for every brand out there. They’re all dying to get her to be their ambassador. Every director with a complete brain wants to cast her for their new drama.

And it’s her who can lift you to heights in your career. So you’d be an idiot not to seal the deal.

“Have you worked with her before?”

As your needle sews a story of fabric, Eunbi’s words whittle her story with Hyewon. Turns out, this is only her second time working with the star. She confirms that Hyewon is truly gorgeous in person with those god-given full lips and hardset eyes.

Apparently, first impressions are right after all when it’s with her—she’s a silent, withholding woman who doesn’t talk outside of necessity. Eunbi tells you her nerves were in knots the first time, but also informs you that as long as you do your job for her properly, there isn’t gonna be any problem.

“Just be careful in what you do and say,” Eunbi whispers. She peeks over at your nearly finished piece. “That’s turning out really nice, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

Look proudly at your handiwork. It’s a sleeveless top fashioned from denim, with a V-shaped curve at the stomach. You’ve attached strips of more denim on the front that are sewn on with threads that match the blue of the ocean, embedded into the chest to prevent dullness. You think it’s turning out pretty good, too.

You would’ve gone on smiling if it weren’t for what you remembered. “Wait, why do I have to be careful?”

“She’s not, like, shy or anything. Just really unfiltered when it comes to feedback. She told me the eyeliner I did on her was shit, and that I shouldn’t come back if I planned on doing that again.”

Doubts about the beauty of your design rise. It might look good in your eyes, but what if it doesn’t in hers? She’d probably see the lack of color and call it a monstrosity. She’s got the type of power to get away with brutal words, to leave your little self-confidence in pieces.

The leg-hugging jeans and vest now look painfully average to you. There’s no debating that she’d look good in it, but there’s that constant back-and-forth argument in your head about whether or not Hyewon would like it.

“Were you hurt?” you ask.

Eunbi wipes red lipstick from the edges of her mouth with the mirror’s reflection as guidance, then smiles. “She’s the kind of woman I’d let do more than hurt me.”

-

You don’t know what that was about, but you’re not one to pry. You don’t have the time anyway.

Assistants have poured into the room. It’s your sign to put in more work—their arrival means that Hyewon is about to come very soon. They’re all dressed in their uniforms, the kind that looks good but not too good that it takes away the fact that they’re just staff.

Eunbi shifts her weight from one stiletto to another. “Are you done?” she asks. She gazes over at your sewing as she taps anxious rhythms on the vanity table. Notice how she’s taken off her acrylics and in turn shows her cruelly bitten fingernails.

You huff. “I’m trying.”

Stick a red-studded pin through the denim to keep the vest in place. What shade of blue did you use again? Staring for lengthy minutes at your messy table doesn’t help you find it. Your chalks have left pink powder on the wood. Your threads are unspooled and everywhere. In the midst of it all, the star’s vest sits, still waiting to be finished.

“She’s getting here in five!” Yena shouts.

“Any updates there?” Eunbi says pleadingly to you, eyes full of tears.

“I said I’m trying, Eunbi.”

“Then try harder, fuck!”

Her hands have abandoned their rhythms and are squeezed up into tiny, helpless fists. She keeps peeking out of the dressing room as if she’d die on the spot if Hyewon were there already. This is the first time you’ve seen Eunbi this beside herself. Even her crew is shocked. Her fear infects them too and now all sets of scared eyes are on you. They’re depending on your speed for their careers. If you fall short, they fall short, too. It’s a domino effect of failure.

Yena pushes aside the hangers of clothing to frisk for the makeup kit. Chaeyeon has her hands in her air while Minju whimpers behind her. They all know one thing for sure: you’re never gonna finish on time.

Your needle fits and slips, fits and slips, fits and slips—

“Can’t you go any faster?” cries out Eunbi.

The thread almost pulls the rest of the fabric along it when you pull furiously. “Unless you want me to get stabbed in the fucking wrist,” you say, “I can’t.”

You prick yourself multiple times trying to speed up. Push the layered denim down. It’s like drowning a needle, letting it go up from the waves of clothes for air, then drowning it again. However, you don’t care for any casualties right now. You don’t care for deaths either. All you want is to do is finish this piece.

You hear three short knocks on the door. Your world stops, but your sewing doesn’t. You can do this. You can still make it look somehow finished.

“Ms. Kang!”