On the way back to my room, I had a great internal struggle. Not the type that would define who I would be for the rest of my life, but the important question of whether or not I should put on one of my suits and parade myself around the Clan compound looking super sexy. Being the responsible Chinese son my mother raised me to be, I was just about to start reading over some more of the documents for the Zhou Dragonship when I was interrupted. A loud banging at the door caused me to stop my preparations for a long reading session. When I got up and answered the door, I was surprised to find it was Baoli at the door with a couple servants.

Before I get a chance to do any sort of greeting, she barges in, much to the distress of her servants, as their complaints and warnings about being in another unmarried man’s room alone. She waves off her servants complaints, her rebuttal dismissing the archaic idea that a girl and a guy would be going at it whenever they are alone, as well as including a vague “friendzone” comment that references the fact that we both know we are off the table for each other, if we had even wanted to pursue that option. She finally calms the servants down enough to get to why she came to my room in the first place.

She starts by mentioning why I haven’t seen a miss Youhao, “Well you see, our mother died fairly early in our childhoods, Zhonglei barely remembers much of her, mostly just kitty memories of stories being told and the occasional song. Meanwhile I am younger of us two and I only remember to vague songs she song to us two. As a result of us growing up largely without a mother, I ended up filling in the “womanly touch” role in our little family as I grew up. Both my father and my brother come to me for fashion advice among other things. Eventually fashion became a passion of mine, and I became one of the major trend setters and fashion figures in this city, so when I saw your commissions, I could instinctually understand it would shake the fashion within this city, potentially in the capital city as well”.

Doing the occasional nod and “mhm” to further the conversation along, I eventually come to the conclusion she is going to be parading me and her brother around to ensure she “wins” this newest development in the city’s fashion. I waited a few moments longer after she finished speaking to see what her next step was, when she didn’t grab my arm and whisk me away to a dressing room in an attempt to “reinvent” me, I realized I missed something.

Mentally going back to the conversation, I realized she asked me if I was able to meet with Youhao to help her bring forth the proposal of a provisional work outfit, the idea of utilizing fabric types in the different components of a suit to act as the markers of one’s rank in the Clan. When I asked her to clarify what she meant, she only specified that the upper echelons of the Clan should be distinguished from the senior members of the Clan, as well as the grunts of the Clan. While I could clearly tell there was some classism being brought in with that statement, I saw an easy way to tie the inherent classism this society had with the cost of certain materials. I offered up a compromise to her, saying the grunts of the Clan could be “designated” cotton as the base material for everything, wool for senior clan members, and silk for the upper echelons. I added the stipulation that any group could have blended materials of the groups below them, as well as the actual quality of the material could vary for any of the groups.I worded it this way so that the more valuable of a member you were in the clan, the more likely you were condemned to wearing something gaudy and unfashionable. On the other hand, it would allow high quality cotton and wool fabrics to also shine, making it so that even the lower ranked clan members, assuming they had some money, could still obtain great suits.

Baoli seemed to seriously consider my idea, as it gave her plenty of ways to enforce her fashion rule, without taking away from actual fashion options. While I doubt I needed to mention it, I did also mention the concept of certain women’s clothing pairing well with suits, giving her a way of subtly manipulating the men’s formal clothing field, before taking what power she has gained and pushing it along her own field of expertise. I even went a step further, saying that as the new men’s clothes “mature” and new lines of these fabrics and new players come into the game, she would be able to keep control of the men’s fashion developments through women’s fashion.

“It seems fairly likely that even with your brother, dad, and I all coordinating our efforts under your directions to dictate the rise of suits in men’s fashion, that the field will mutate and change beyond our control. It’s better to try and establish the initial ruleset, let things play out a bit and see what changes occur, then introduce suits and other matching couples outfits into the mix so you can take control of the field again” I give my last piece of advice to her. With that, one of Baoli’s servants mentions that Youhao has confirmed and opening for a brief meeting regarding the suits. I’m told to get dressed in one of my suits, preferably without white involved, and head to the Youhao’s office when I’m done.

Thinking ahead, I get on my dark blue wool blazer, with a lighter blue dress shirt underneath it, along with matching dark blue pants, so that the general look is casual, but clearly has the formal implications of the event. After checking the mirror a bit, I can see this would be a good representation of what the suit could look like in a casual sense, as well as making it easy to show how the missing piece of the outfit, the tie, could easily bring the together the outfit to show its full potential. Once I was satisfied with how I could present this look, I head over to the Branch Head’s office.

Walking into the office, the butler immediately noticing my new outfit. For the first time, the Butler actually engages me in a conversation. Admittedly, it wasn’t a long conversation, but he apparently knew why I was coming that night, and expected very little of what I would be showcasing. It wasn’t like he hated me, or inherently the younger generation, just that he knew the youth didn’t know formal fashion, so going by his experience, he just assumed I thought something was considered either new in the formal wear field, or was truly “formal”. This is the family who would know the most about dressing up and looking good in formal wear.the fact that I beat his expectations was a bit of a reward in of itself.

It turns out Baoli and Youhaou had been watching our short conversation, noting the lack of a rejection, it was taken as a good sign. Walking into the office with them, our conversation was a bit more detailed than my conversation with the butler. After talking them through the different stages of how my outfit could be worn, from business casual, to everyday business, to formal events like weddings, to true executive level business meetings, he eventually relented. He gave us the ultimatum that only if they could sway much of the actual important people in the city’s fashion circles would he actually do any implementation of the process. Before leaving, Youhao checked up on my process with reviewing the documents, and after telling him I had most of it looked over, and the remaining I would be reviewing over the weekend, he was satisfied, giving the gentle “dad” reminder to get it done sooner than later.

Leaving his office, I headed back to my room. Much as I enjoyed wearing this suit, I didn’t want to ruin the suit for something as silly as reviewing some documents in my room. Since my appearance didn’t didn’t matter I ended up changing into something more comfortable so I could review the ship project documents in some comfort. After a few hours of going through everything I picked up the fact that since this had some Imperial funding, there was an extra level of paperwork that was being completed and sent to the Imperial Administration. Eventually I decided I found a good place to stop, where I ended up being left with just a quarter of the remaining documents. Using the remainder of the night for food, eating some delicious true Chinese fried rice, if you put aside the Qi infused ingredients that made it taste even better. I finished off my “work” with some more formation reading, I eventually decide to end my night early, heading to sleep after having such an exciting and momentous day.