“Well first thing I’d need for the fashion event is models, people who wear the clothes and strut their stuff. I kinda want Yi to be one of them.”

Yisillia blinked and cocked her head, “Why me.”

Aeric shrugged, “You’re gorgeous, I can easily make any outfit work on you with a bit of messing around with your hair. Having elf models is basically cheating.”

“So you just want me for my looks.”

“Yup, since looking good is literally a model’s job.”

She folded her arms and glowered at him, “I feel like I should be offended about that.”

“Offended about calling you gorgeous?”

“About that being the reason you want me to model.”

Aeric looked around at the others and shrugged, “You’re the most beautiful person I know, you’re perfectly symmetrical, have just the right amount of curves. Your skin is ungodly smooth, you have nice long legs with just the right amount of musculature. Fashionistas would have killed to have you as their model.”

She frowned, “Yet I’m not the one you're most attracted to?”

Aeric blinked and opened his mouth before he shut it. “Well if we talk about attraction. Xii is the one I’d be most attracted to. Attraction doesn’t just mean looks.”

Xii grinned smile wide and from ear to ear, eyes glimmering as she looked over at him. “You’re attractive too, Red.”

“Glad you think so.”

Yisillia frowned, “Yet you don’t want Xii to be a model?”

“Oh I totally want Xii to be a model, I absolutely want to see her with a rocker-girl look. Which reminds me I need to reinvent jeans. Jeans are great, not sure how they’d look on Xii though. She’s pretty skinny, not much ass to her.”

“You dissin my ass?!”

“Only in comparison to Yi.”

Xii snorted and her eyes flicked towards Yisillia’s rear, “Fair enough, can’t argue with that.”

“Hey!”

Hurma coughed, “So did you have other models in mind?”

Aeric nodded, “I have a few people in mind, I’d like you as well actually. I think you’d look pretty great in flannel. Fjar and Grant as male models, both have great bone structure and physiques. They’d be perfect for suits. Meera would be great for the more athletic gear, Celina has the curvature I could use for some of the more risque dresses. I have a feeling she’d really enjoy modelling.”

Aliami folded her arms, “I notice that they’re mostly the ones closest to the human form.”

Aeric sighed and sat down, leaning back in his chair. “Yup, to be honest they are by far the easiest for me. I just have to change the colouration and size a bit for them to fit. For the golems I’m not even sure what to make. Same for Treeka, her own feathers are already so vibrant most clothing can’t stack up. Most of the clothing I already know of wouldn’t be very flattering on her.”

“Well I’m both glad you like my feathers and somewhat bummed you can’t think of great clothing for me.”

“Correction. I can’t think of great clothing for you yet.”

“That does make me feel better.” She chirped at him and punched his shoulder, “Although that presenter job sounds up my alley.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d enjoy something like that. Do any of you know an illusion mage that we can use for lighting and special effects and the like?”

Yisillia, Xii, Fjar and Aliami all raised a hand. He looked between the four of them, “Is it the same one?”

“Yui?” Xii asked, looking at the others. They nodded and she grinned, “Yea, we know just the person, she’d love to be a part of something like this. I’ll ask her.”

“Right so next on the list would be food. Oh, and we’ll probably need bouncers and the like, security for if people try to get handsy or other annoying stuff.”

Xii snorted, “With the people you chose as models I’d like to see them get handsy, they’d lose those hands.”

Aeric smiled and patted her shoulder, “I know you can handle yourselves, but security would also need to keep the crowds in line. Prevent people from going into the areas where they shouldn’t be, like the changing room or the storage area.” He turned to Aliami, “Do you have any caterers you can contact?”

“”I have plenty of people I can go to for food, especially for an event. I could also arrange the use of a city square for our event and do some advertising. How big do you want it to be?”

“Well I was gonna leave most of the planning to you, if you’re up for it. I’m not that great with organisational stuff. If there’s something you need my help for then feel free to ask, but I’d also have to make a lot of different styles of clothing. It’s also customary to do a wedding dress as the last run, the highlight of the show. I was going to ask Irma if she wanted to show off her dress.”

“So we can expect hundreds of people for an event like that. That’s going to require more than one caterer I think. Are food stalls not an option?”

Aeric tapped his chin, throwing his head back and looking at the ceiling while he thought it over. “If we make the event public, then food stalls would be great. I don’t know what the good food stalls are though. If we have someone trying to scam visitors it could wreak havoc on our reputation.”

Aliami waved his concern away, “I know who to choose. So I need security, food and drink, a stage as well as a podium for the show itself. Storage for clothing and food.” She counted the necesarry stuff down on her fingers. Then looked back up to check, getting a nod from Aeric.

Fjar raised a hand, “I’ll arrange things with my fellow diplomats, I do believe they would enjoy something like this. I know Aliami could ask the city lord personally but I believe it would be better to go through official channels. It would make things easier if we ever want to repeat the event. I do believe you plan to do this more than once, no?”

“I do. I plan to go visit some other cities to do fashion shows eventually, but for now I still don’t even know the one I live in that well. Plus I need to build my reputation a bit. Would make future events easier.”

Fjar patted his shoulder, “Well then, I am off to get the details sorted. You should get to work on the pieces you want for the fashion show. You also have that custom piece left to finish so at its earliest I believe the event would be somewhere next week. Since we have the time, we should take it and do this properly.”

Aeric nodded, “Should also give the models and Treeka some time to practise and prepare, they need to work on their walks and flourishes. Each set of clothing has a personality attached, so they’ll have to act a bit.”

Yisillia smiled, “It does sound interesting, even if all the attention isn’t my kind of thing.”

“You’ll do great, I have faith in all of you. Now with that.” Aeric clapped his hands, “Meeting adjourned, we all have work to do.” He waved Fjar off as he moved to his workbench, getting the cloth he needed for the suit.

Day turned to night and Hurma was picking up on the creation of suits much faster than he had expected. She could already make decent suits. By decent he meant a higher level than the materials used. The clothing itself was immaculate, she used the iron regularly and kept the suit smooth.

Aeric had managed to finish the custom order within a day, it wasn’t a complicated piece. He identified it and cocked his head.

[The Gentleman Butcher’s Suit

[Exceptional Quality

[A suit created by talented tailor Aeric Redwool for a monster butcher who enjoys his anonymity. It’s well styled and blood repellent.

[Minor Self Repair, Blood Repelling, Minor Focus Enhancement]

Exactly as the drow had ordered. He nodded to himself, satisfied with the work. Next he’d have to start work on the styles he wanted to show off in the show. He’d have to figure out how to make jeans. He’d watched a how they’re made video ages ago, and perhaps with some experimentation and the memories he had he could make a proper set of jeans. He was pretty sure denim would be pretty popular, although perhaps not as popular as they had been back home. He wasn’t sure how jeans went with some of the furrier races, nor did he think the avians or golems would appreciate them. Humans, dwarves, and elves and the like would probably enjoy them however.

For now he could work on the shirts, the flannel for the lumberjack blouse shouldn’t be hard to do. A leather jacket for the rocker girl look was another easy one. He needed shirts with print as well though, or maybe a simple slightly tattered white t-shirt? Xii was anything but curvy, but that was something he could work with. Some harder lines to draw attention to her bone structure. He wanted to keep the styles urban, or urban-adjacent.

He really needed jeans for a lot of the urban styles though. They were made from cotton and went through quite a bit of treatment, he was sure it included corn starch. He knew cotton was a pain in the ass to thread, especially with mediaeval technology. He didn’t know how much magic and system shenanigans made a difference. He’d have to ask Aliami. Looking up, he saw that she was at a workbench writing things down on a piece of parchment. He headed over.

“Aliami, do you know some people who work to make cotton into cloth?”

She looked up from her work and tapped a claw on the workbench. “Cotton isn’t used much, it’s a hard material to process. I do know a few people who work with it, you need some?”

Aeric nodded, “I need it to undergo a different process before that. I need it threaded, treated with cornstarch and painted yellow. The oxidation should turn that yellow into indigo once the treated thread is processed. I don’t know what exact kind of paint was used though but it’ll toughen up the threads. Then you let it dry and the colour will fade to a lighter blue. The result would be what in my world was called denim. They were used to make jeans which is probably the most worn single piece of clothing world-wide.”

“That sounds like quite the process, I can see it getting it done but it’s unlikely it’ll be done any time soon. How much do you need it?”

“Most of the modern clothing and urban styles feature jeans in some form. I’m pretty sure they will become popular amongst the humanoids. The fleshy ones, not sure about how it works with fur.”

She nodded and wrote something down on the parchment. “I’ll get on it, I’ll let you know when I have what you need. You might need to visit the people who make the stuff though.”

“That’s fine, I was bound to meet them sooner or later. There’ll probably be more materials I need to synthesise in the future.”

Aeric went back to his workbench and glanced out the window; the sun would be setting soon but he could still get some patterns and designs done. Rocker for Xii, maybe also streetwear, hip-hop style. Yisillia could wear some college girl outfit, maybe something hipster like as well? He could probably knit a beanie and have flannel in a more tailored style than he had planned to make for Hurma. Athletic clothing for Meera, a sports bra and shorts? Yoga pants and a jacket maybe as well. Celina automatically brought to mind the pin-up style. But that wouldn’t really fit the theme.

He tapped his chin as he drew the various outfits, he really needed to think of something for Celina to wear as well. Most styles would work on both men and women, lingerie was something he’d been thinking about but definitely not something that fit the theme or he wanted for his first show. There had to be some urban styles he wasn’t considering… Gothic? He thought about it and grinned, if he wanted to be a little theatrical he could say he finally had that big titty goth girlfriend. He chuckled to himself, too bad there wasn’t a meme society in this world.

He paused and thought to himself, could he create his own meme society? Fantasy memes? That sounded like both an awesome and a horrible idea, also it would take way too much effort so he probably shouldn’t. There were things that just weren’t meant to be in older civilisations, memes were probably one of them. He blinked as someone tapped his shoulder. He looked over and saw Xii with a raised eyebrow.

“What are you grinning to yourself about?”

“Memes!”

She folded her arms and stared at him with an exasperated smile, “Pray tell, what are memes?”

“Enjoyable horrible things that are a waste of time but somehow still funny and utterly stupid at the same time.”

“Uh huh, and what exactly made you chuckle to yourself like an old pervert.”

“Ah, that was probably the big titty goth girlfriend part.”

Xii narrowed her eyes, “Do explain.”

“Well I was wondering what style would suit Celina, goth is something that really uses a lot of black. Honestly, her skin might be a little dark for a proper goth-thing. Pale skin with the contrast in black is where it’s at. But I still think she’d look absolutely great as a goth. But it did give me ideas for the more radical styles. Rebel, Skater, Emo, Jock. There are a ton of those ‘I’m a special teen, look at my clothes’ kind of outfits.”

“And you’re going to use those outfits in a show. A show run by famous people in the city and with models that a lot of people look up to.”

“Absolutely.”

“So we will be seeing a lot of these teens in those styles after the show. You do realise there’s a real chance it will catch on don’t you?”

Aeric grinned and patted her shoulder, “Here’s hoping! It’d be hilarious to see a gnoll with a neon-pink mohawk and covered in leather and spikes. Seeing an elf in a trailer-park bimbo ensemble? A golem who covered himself in graffiti? I have so many ideas now, this is gonna be hilarious.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. But her lips quirked into a smirk. “You do realise that we have a reputation to uphold.”

Aeric shrugged, “None of the negative connotations will be added to the clothing, to most people it will simply be a new colourful style. With how progressive the city is and how much drive people show, I’ve no doubt that a fashion style with a lot of colour and flash will become pretty popular. I wonder if any of them will still cling to the edgy teen faction.”

“So are there a lot of these factions that you’re counting on?”

“Well, there are always the more traditional people who have various views on new stuff. Most of it negative, old people generally dislike change. I don’t know if it's worse or better with how long people live here. There is a lot that could be done. But they might have become used to change because of their longer lifespans. Unless of course things change even less because older generations live for so long. Do you know how it is?”

Xii shrugged, “We are a young city filled with mostly young people, no established traditions so there is plenty of room for innovation. If you’re going to start fashion trends then it's probably going to spread and things will go fast. Other people will start experimenting with clothing and soon enough there’s going to be a ton of wacky stuff on the streets.”

Aeric grinned, “It’s kind of weird being a trendsetter now, when I used to be the one to simply go with the flow and whatever was most comfortable to wear. Although I’m pretty sure you’re really going to enjoy the rocker look. It just fits you so well, I wonder how Yi will react to the clothing though.”

The elf looked up and stared at him suspiciously. “Is there some really weird stuff that you want me to wear? I was listening to you talking about all those radical styles you know. I don’t know how well suited I am for those.”

“Honestly, the clothing I had in mind for you is rather vanilla compared to the rest. Jeans will totally make your ass stand out though. But that’s their job, jeans were worn by girls for that very reason. A good ass in jeans? Something men all over the world love.”

Yisillia folded her arms and frowned. “So you want to showcase my ass.”

Aeric sighed and leaned back in his chair, folding the hands behind his back. “Let me put it this way: you're focusing too much on what the people will think of you. You have to look at it from a different perspective. What’s important is not how you look. It’s about how you make the clothes look. You’re the frame for the painting, the better you manage the looks, the better it is for the clothes. Some people will notice things about you of course, but the presenter and the lighting and you yourself will be doing their best to draw all attention to the clothing.”

Yisillia cocked her head, “So that means what?”

“That means if things go as they are supposed to people won't be thinking ‘Wow Yisillia’s ass looks really great in those jeans!’ They will be thinking, ‘Wow those jeans really make her ass look great.’ Then other people who do want to showcase their rear will remember how nice jeans made yours look. Stop thinking of it as objectification of you, and of you showcasing the clothing instead.”

She sighed and leaned back in her chair, “Well, that does actually make me feel better. I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that you were using me for my looks.”

“Well I am, but only because it works out. I’m not sure how to properly explain it though. I can’t think of a way to say it other than that. I mean you know me, I’m not really the objectifying kind of person.”

Xii snorted, “Until you go into one of those tinker states of yours. Then everyone wearing clothes is a mannequin and we are all objects for you to use.”

Aeric laughed, “Well I suppose that is true. But if you really feel that uncomfortable about it, you don’t have to model, Yi. I asked you because it would be good for me, but you have to consider whether it’s something you want to do. If you do it for me but feel really shitty doing it? I’d hate that, I don’t want to push you into something. I was just naming people I thought would fit well, you have the right to say no.”

Yisillia waved his concerns away, “I know you wouldn’t actually force me into anything. But it’s hard to not get dragged along with the passion you show in things. Elves are generally rather stoic people, we take our time with everything. Since we have a lot of time, you’re like a whirlwind. You think of something, start doing it, and everyone else gets dragged along. It’s… different. But I don’t dislike it.”

“Well I appreciate all you guys do for me, I hope you know that.”

“We do know that, you mention it pretty regularly.”

Aeric blushed and scratched at his beard, “Not that regularly, but I feel like I don’t really give back as much as you guys do for me. Kind of a one-sided friendship? Which I know is a bad thing but I'm just not sure what to do for you guys.”

Hurma looked up with a sudden gleam in her eyes, “We are totally investing. Once you're at a really high level we are going to be coming to you for freebie clothes.”

Xii laughed and looked over at Hurma, “And so the silent one has been concocting schemes this entire time. Can’t say I disagree though, you’re bound to end up being a great resource for all of us. Whether with connections forged through your clothing or those custom pieces themselves. When you have a kid, you don’t expect anything other than love in return. Maybe once you’re older and become infirm, you’ll expect some care in return. That kinda sums up what we do for you.”

Aeric rolled his eyes, “Good to know I’m like a baby to you guys.”

“You do take an awful amount of care. We have to make sure you sleep properly, feed you, sometimes make sure you wear clean clothes when you get into a project. Sounds like a kid to me. That or I’m a wife!”

“Yea, yea laugh it up. It’s time for dinner, Shouldn’t you go cook like the mom slash housewife you are?!”

“See? I’m totally a wife and you’re my husband!” She headed upstairs and waved smugly at him before blowing him a kiss.

Aeric rolled his eyes and looked over at the others who had small smiles of amusement.