The young Miss Windsor was startled from her pleasant dream, suddenly remembering her family's current situation. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears: "We're almost out of money..."
Seeing those beautiful, large eyes threatening to spill over,
Fatty Mai chimed in from the side: "Exactly! Setting aside the house for a moment, just those two shopfronts your family owns on Triumph Avenue are worth a fortune. That's the commercial heart of our Morant City—land there is worth its weight in gold. Owning two storefronts there means your business foundation is far more solid than others'. Just look at the Golden Horn Chamber of Commerce. Didn't they start out holed up in some small tavern, running errands? After five or six years of operation, they've now grown into a major merchant guild pulling in millions of gold coins annually. Miss, as long as you find a good business venture, earning over a thousand gold coins a year is actually quite simple."
The girl lifted her beautiful, tear-stained face, her misty, large eyes blinking as she asked a question both simple and profound: "Then do you know what kind of business can earn over a thousand gold coins a year?"
"Ah!" Fatty Mai seemed to suddenly remember something and immediately made his escape. "Oh my, I forgot I need to inspect the academy! It's been terribly dry lately, the students are all hot-tempered, and fights are easily started. Our Enforcement Department is busy from dawn till dusk with no time to catch our breath. Now even the nights aren't peaceful—people are even running off to bathe in Moon Lake. You two keep chatting, I'm off."
The girl's face flushed.
As Fatty Mai passed the girl, he gave a rather dashing half-bow. He muttered quickly under his breath, "He has a way," before disappearing out the door.
Lorist had a splitting headache. This Miss Windsor seemed determined to latch onto him. Wherever he went, she followed, staying right at his heels—even when he needed to use the restroom, she stood guard outside and refused to leave. This situation had already attracted the attention and pointing fingers of quite a few students. At this rate, it would soon turn into a full-blown spectacle.
"I concede, Miss. What exactly do you want?" Lorist asked, caught between laughter and tears, looking at the girl's stubborn face.
"Who told you to fish me out of the water? Now you have to take responsibility for me."
"I'm speechless! Did I do wrong by saving someone? So how exactly do you want me to take responsibility?"
"I want you to help me..."
"Absolutely not. That matter of yours is too complicated and exhausting. It's too much trouble."
"If you're taking responsibility, you have to help me. You even have a way to reclaim our family's territory, so you must have a way to make money in business..." The girl stamped her foot, acting like a coquettish lover.
Lorist's heart softened: "I won't do it without some benefit..."
The girl smiled, radiant as a blossom, beautifully bright and gentle: "Then how about I be your girlfriend..."
Lorist was lost in the girl's smile...
Lorist's advice to his new girlfriend, Miss Windsor, was to shut down the business selling Qigeda Kingdom specialties and general goods in those two Triumph Avenue storefronts. Instead, they should redecorate and, from now on, specialize exclusively in high-end women's fashion boutiques.
The girl blinked her large eyes, utterly bewildered. She simply couldn't comprehend what "high-end women's fashion boutiques" meant. In her mind, noble ladies and misses either had clothes custom-made by professionals or made them themselves with their maids. No one bought ready-to-wear from shops. After all, the clothes sold in ready-to-wear stores were simple, mass-market styles, primarily catering to mercenaries, hired laborers, minor civil servants, housewives, and vendors—the common citizenry. No noble would ever frequent such a place; it would be beneath their dignity. Word would get out, and they'd become a laughingstock among the nobility, worthy only of scorn.
Lorist patiently explained that they wouldn't be running a typical ready-to-wear shop. Instead, they would create bespoke gowns and dresses of the highest quality, custom-made specifically for noble ladies and misses. A single women's garment could earn at least a dozen gold coins, if not more.
Was that possible? Would anyone actually buy them? The girl looked at her new boyfriend with deep skepticism.
Of course it was possible, Lorist assured her. As long as the designs were good and set a fashion trend, those noblewomen—who only bought the most expensive, not necessarily the most suitable—combined with their competitive nature, would make it impossible not to get rich.
Then who would design them? the girl asked.
Naturally, me, said Lorist, pointing to himself with supreme confidence.
Lorist was naturally very confident. In fact, opening a high-end women's fashion boutique had been one of his long-planned money-making ideas; he was simply bringing it out now to help his girlfriend. As for fashion design, in his previous life, he had obtained a designer's certification. He could even be considered an expert, especially when it came to princess gowns and formal women's attire.
In his previous life, when he was still the manager of a small craft factory, he once received an order. A wealthy tycoon wanted to celebrate his seven-year-old daughter's birthday and sent a request to Mattel, the world's largest toy distributor, to commission one hundred and eight Barbie dolls, each the same size as his daughter, at a unit price of one hundred thousand yuan. But there was a special requirement: the hundred and eight Barbies had to wear different styles of princess gowns and have different formal women's gowns to change into, because his daughter loved wearing princess dresses. Therefore, those hundred and eight sets of princess gowns and formal gowns amounted to two hundred and sixteen pieces of high-end children's fashion, interchangeable at will.
Designing and custom-making those princess gowns and women's gowns for him... but was one hundred thousand yuan per doll even enough to cover the design and tailoring fees? After thinking about it, he decided that matters concerning Chinese tycoons were best left for Chinese manufacturers to worry about. So the order was placed with a Chinese factory for fifty thousand yuan per unit, with the same requirements.
Of course, the tycoon wanted authentic Mattel-brand Barbies, but he had forgotten that China at the time was the world's factory—even authentic Barbies were made in China; Mattel only slapped on the label. When the order reached the Chinese factory, they were also stumped. The Barbie dolls themselves were no problem; just adjust the molds. Although the quantity was small, the profit margin was high. But what about the clothes? Contact a garment company? Who would bother with just two hundred or so sets? And they required different styles, meaning different fabrics and different production requirements. The design alone was a hassle, especially since those princess gowns and formal gowns required decorative embellishments of gold, silver, and gemstones, as well as special materials like whalebone and animal pelts. It was a hassle within a hassle. Finally, an executive at the factory thought of his old comrade-in-arms, Lorist, who managed the small craft factory. Manager Lorist made the call: take it. They took on the design and production of those two hundred-plus sets of high-end children's fashion.
For those three months, Lorist endured untold hardships. From the film "Sissi" to "Napoleon the Great," from online fashion forums to various entertainment magazines, from appreciating world-famous paintings to the latest red carpet photos of female celebrities, the collected reference materials and pictures of women's fashion designs piled up like mountains. People in the office joked that it was enough to compile a complete encyclopedia of historical and international high-end women's fashion.
Lorist and several designers worked day and night, discussing, referencing, and deliberating tirelessly, until they finally produced design sketches for over five hundred princess gowns and formal women's dresses. These were sent to the Chinese factory, then forwarded to Mattel, which in turn sent them to the Chinese tycoon. The tycoon approved two hundred and sixteen of the designs, which were sent all the way back to the small craft factory for production. That order earned the small craft factory over five hundred thousand yuan. As the manager at the time, Lorist began contemplating whether to convert the small craft factory into a children's clothing manufacturer.
Having transmigrated to Galentea six years ago, Lorist had gained a deep understanding of this unfamiliar world. As Galentea's largest commercial city, Morant City had always been renowned across the continent for its openness and freedom, consistently leading Galentea's fashion trends. However, in Lorist's eyes, these so-called fashion trends were nothing but a joke. Because these trends amounted to things like "the pelt of some magical beast is softer and makes the best shawl," or "some poet wrote a new poem that's so moving and romantic to read," or "the newly released rapier from some Moorish weapons shop, sharp and resilient, not easily broken, and beautifully ornate to wear at your side, greatly enhancing your heroic aura and attracting the attention of beautiful ladies." What did any of that have to do with real fashion?
Nobles generally had a habit of having clothes custom-made for themselves and their families. But Lorist had discovered that the styles of clothing worn by the nobility today were hardly different from those of several hundred years ago, with only minor changes like better-quality fabrics or the addition of gold thread lace or similar small embellishments. The noble ladies, madams, and misses all did as Miss Windsor described: either professional custom-making or making things themselves with their maids. Even professional custom-making adhered to old styles, with most effort focused on the materials. Those who made their own clothes changed the pattern structure a bit, then gathered at social events to chatter endlessly about whose garment had more exquisite embroidery or whose stitching skills were the best.
Therefore, Lorist was very confident that if his designs—those princess gowns and formal dresses—were presented before these noble ladies, madams, and misses, it would drive them wild. Every woman loved beauty; it was just that the women of Galentea hadn't yet experienced the charm of fashionable clothing. Unlike his previous world, where the imaginations of fashion designers had been pushed to the limits of reason and beyond, to the point where many designers had gone bald from the effort.
Miss Windsor, however, kept doubting whether her new boyfriend was truly reliable. Lorist couldn't stand being stared at by those big, beautiful eyes any longer, so he decided to show her what real skill looked like, letting this miss see what true capability was.
The girl brought her new boyfriend back to her home in the eastern district. Her two personal maids, Lina and Suzy, were very curious. Their young miss was usually so haughty and discerning—how could she bring home this ordinary-looking man? His clothes weren't anything special either. And he even had a black iron badge pinned to his chest; how ugly.
Lorist naturally had no idea his girlfriend's two maids were critiquing him. He casually chose a well-lit, empty room on the third floor, asked for paper and pencils, and using the girl as a model, began sketching princess gown designs. At first, the girl found fault from the side, complaining that the fabric was too scanty, that showing so much skin made him a pervert, and that such form-fitting clothes would be embarrassing to wear. But as sketch after sketch was completed, the girl fell silent. When Lorist turned around, he was startled to find her eyes glazed over, staring intently at the designs, lost in her own fantasy.
Lorist clapped his hands a few times by the girl's ear, rousing her from her daydream. Her face flushed red, and she grabbed the princess gown sketches without ceremony. "I want to make these right away..."
With that, she ran out of the room to find her maids. Lorist called after her: "What about me?"
"You stay put in the room and sketch more designs! I'll have someone bring your dinner up," the girl said.