TCRT_18

Chapter 18: Promotion Takes Effect — Future Social Elites

In the early morning, bright sunlight streamed through the tram windows and fell across the crowded standing passengers.

Ji Qingzhou held his satchel in place with one hand and squeezed his way through passengers who were either eating breakfast or reading the newspaper with their heads bowed, positioning himself at the tram door.

When the tram slowed near the entrance to Love Lane, he seized the right moment and leapt off swiftly from the door.

The trams of that era had no gates, and drivers would generally not stop anywhere outside the designated platform stops. Getting on and off depended entirely on the passenger's own agility, which was why the practice was known as 'flying the tram'.

From the novice who had once dawdled and missed the best spot to jump off out of fear of falling, Ji Qingzhou had by now trained himself into a nimble veteran who dismounted with the ease of a swallow in flight.

After getting off, he walked a short stretch along a tree-lined road, reached the lane entrance, and turned right. There was Love Lane, its path paved with gravel, shops crowded close on either side.

He had barely turned the corner when his eyes were caught by the roses climbing halfway up the wall outside his own shop.

Before closing up the previous evening, he had noticed that the branches of the two rose bushes by the wall had become swollen with buds, though he had no idea when they had formed. He had not expected that coming by early the next morning, the flowers would already be in full bloom competing with each other to open.

The red blooms blazed brilliantly in the morning sun, some so heavy they bent their branches downward under the weight, the red flowers against the green leaves vivid and eye-catching.

"Mr. Ji, you are opening a little late this morning!"

Ji Qingzhou strolled up to the shop entrance and stood there in good spirits for a while admiring the flowers. He was just about to fish the key out of his bag to unlock the door when a greeting came from behind.

He turned around and met the grinning face of the assistant from the snack stall across the way.

Xiao Yang was wiping down the square tables beneath the oilcloth awning at the entrance, and upon seeing Ji Qingzhou look over, raised the hand holding the cloth and gave it a wave.

"Don't even mention it, I overslept!" Ji Qingzhou called back to him, then turned and unlocked the shop door with his key.

The first order of business upon opening was to hang the shop sign out front.

After that he gave the place a quick tidy, and watered the roses by the door.

Once these small chores were done, he sat down at the sewing machine and picked up where he had left off the day before.

The clear spring sunlight filled the laneway, and a warm breeze carrying the fragrance of food from the snack stalls mingled with the scent of roses and drifted into the garment shop.

Nearly an hour later, Ji Qingzhou finished the job, folded the altered cotton robe neatly, wrapped it in bamboo paper, tied it with thin twine, wrote the customer's name on it, and placed it on the finished goods rack.

He then stood up, stretched with a long yawn, and humming to himself, set about his own work amid the bustling sounds of the street around him.

The previous evening, after Shen Nanqi had returned from the banquet, she had specifically sent a servant to the east wing to pass him a message, reminding him to keep his promise.

From this Ji Qingzhou gathered that Shen Nanqi must have put in a word for him at the banquet, and by the looks of it, quite a substantial one, otherwise she would not have gone to the trouble of sending someone all the way over just to notify him.

But he also understood that when Shen Nanqi advertised on his behalf, she would inevitably have mentioned that the garment itself was the handiwork of Master Yan.

That being the case, even if someone was taken with the new-style qipao, their first choice would certainly be Yuxiang Fashion Shop, not his little tailor's shop.

In other words, the effects of this promotion were unlikely to show up any time soon.

With that in mind, Ji Qingzhou settled himself down, and whenever he had a free moment, turned his full attention to his new designs.

What he had been pouring himself into making these past few days was a men's leather jacket.

About four or five days earlier, while browsing the fabric shops as usual, he had happened to pass a leather goods stall and spotted a whole piece of cowhide laid out on a long table, a good forty square feet in size.

The leather had already been dyed and buffed, the black grain surface fine and lustrous, and the feel of it in his hands was supple, full, and springy. He had taken a liking to it at first glance and found himself rooted to the spot.

Despite the steep price, carried away by impulse, Ji Qingzhou had steeled himself and spent a full twenty silver dollars to buy the entire piece and take it home.

——And that was only after ten minutes of haggling with the owner to bring it down to the lowest price. The man had originally asked thirty-five dollars. What a figure to open with!

Though he had taken quite a financial hit, and though after buying the leather there was precious little left in his pocket, Ji Qingzhou, even amid the heartache, still felt a measure of satisfaction whenever he ran his hands over that full-bodied cowhide.

Forty square feet of leather, with the scraps trimmed away, was just enough for one men's jacket.

And as luck would have it, the male dress form he had commissioned arrived two days prior, making it considerably more convenient to work on garments with complex cuts and strong three-dimensional structure.

Given how expensive the leather was, Ji Qingzhou was exceptionally careful throughout the entire cutting and sewing process, terrified of making a single mistake, as there was no guarantee he would be able to find an identical piece again.

His thinking was that the best outcome would be to sell the finished jacket at a high price, and if it did not sell and he ran short of money, he could always take it to a pawnshop as a last resort, where it would surely fetch back more than he had paid.

Of course, he could only make this assertion with confidence because he had grounds for it.

Based on his research across more than a dozen Western clothing shops and department stores over the past half month or so, leather garments at this time were still imported novelties, rare and uncommon goods.

Ordinary people would certainly never come into contact with them, and even among the well-heeled young gentlemen who favored foreign goods, they were rarely seen wearing such things.

The market for them was therefore extremely narrow, serving essentially only the capitalist class, warlords, and officials. They were seldom-seen luxury items of the highest order.

In other words, this garment would be very difficult to sell, but if it sold, it would absolutely be worth it.

After another hour and more of work, Ji Qingzhou noticed the sunlight had shifted to fall across the doorstep, and knew it was about time to head back for lunch.

He finished sewing the cuff, checked that the sleeve vent was neat and tidy, then set the garment aside and got up to sweep the loose threads and fabric scraps off the floor.

He had barely slipped into the back room to fetch the broom and dustpan when a bright, lively female voice rang out from the front.

"Is the owner here? Is anyone in?"

"Here!" Ji Qingzhou called back, quickly set down the cleaning tools, lifted the curtain, and stepped out. Looking up, he saw two young women, one tall and one short, standing in the doorway with the light behind them, peering inside.

Shi Xuanman had been about to take another look at the shop sign to confirm she had the right place, when the grey cloth curtain inside was whisked aside and a tall young man stepped out.

He had loosely worn, slightly long black hair, a face as fine as jade, and delicate features. Over his white shirt he wore a black cloth apron, its ties wrapped around to the back and knotted there, tracing the line of a slender waist. At first glance he had the air of an artist dedicated to his craft.

She could not help but pause for a moment. She had imagined that Madam Jie's grandnephew would be young, but had not expected him to be quite this young, nor this striking, a handsome man who gave the impression of having been raised in comfort and privilege.

"Ladies, how can I help you?" Ji Qingzhou stepped forward and asked, his gaze taking them in with a discreet glance.

Both customers were very young, around seventeen or eighteen by the look of them.

Both were dressed in similar pine-green trumpet-sleeved lapel blouses and black pleated skirts, with identical white knee-length socks and black leather shoes, giving them the appearance of students.

The taller one had a pretty oval face, a high nose bridge, fine complexion, and eyebrows drawn long and slender, giving her a somewhat mature look.

The slightly shorter one had a rounder face, naturally arched brows and bright almond-shaped eyes beneath sparse bangs, with a rounded nose tip as well, making her appear both charming and a little shy.

From their dress, manner, and bearing, Ji Qingzhou guessed that the two of them had likely attended Old Master Bao's birthday banquet the previous evening.

"You know Madam Jie, I take it? She is the one who sent us here," Shi Xuanman snapped out of her momentary daze and quickly composed herself to answer.

Seeing the young shop owner give a nod, she pulled along her classmate and close friend Fang Birong and stepped inside, saying: "We would like to have a qipao made, the same one Madam Jie wore to Old Master Bao's birthday banquet yesterday. You should know the one?"

"I do," Ji Qingzhou glanced down at his watch. In two more minutes he would miss the tram.

But there was no reason to turn away business that had come to the door. He brought out his sketch book dedicated to qipao designs and asked casually: "What made you come here rather than to Yuxiang?"

"Yuxiang's order list is backed up nearly to June. If we placed an order there, by the time our turn came around, those entertainers and socialites would probably already be out parading the streets in their new clothes."

Shi Xuanman replied plainly, her dark bright eyes watching him without the slightest hesitation.

"And Yuxiang's master tailors, skilled as they are, charge extremely high prices," Fang Birong followed up with a word of her own.

She was by nature quiet and reserved. When going out with friends on ordinary occasions, she would not make prolonged eye contact with unfamiliar men, and whenever communication with a shopkeeper or the like was needed, she always left it to her more outgoing friend.

Yet upon first seeing the owner of this garment shop, she found him unexpectedly easy to approach, and felt a natural inclination to exchange a few words with him.

"My prices are not low either," Ji Qingzhou said, making this clear before handing over the sketchbook: "Three yuan is the base labor fee, fabric and lining are calculated separately. For materials that are more difficult to sew, such as pure silk or sheer fabric, there is an additional half yuan. A design and service fee of one yuan is added for made-to-measure orders, and rush orders are not accepted."

Shi Xuanman was not strong with numbers and could not work it out on the spot, so she turned to look at Fang Birong.

Fang Birong, her cheeks faintly flushed, gave her a nod and said quietly: "Compared to Yuxiang, this is not expensive."

"But what exactly are the design and service fees?" Shi Xuanman asked. Though she was not short of money, her elder brother being a government official and her family running a music instrument shop, with her father giving her a monthly allowance of one or two hundred yuan, having money did not mean she spent it carelessly. Any charge she did not understand, she would ask about clearly.

Ji Qingzhou was only too glad for them to ask in detail, to save any disputes from arising later.

"The design fee is easy enough to understand. Before you saw Madam Jie yesterday, could you have imagined a qipao looking and being worn that way?

"Granted, once a particular silhouette, color combination, or pattern becomes fashionable, everyone can imitate it. But ideas and inspiration are endless, and every garment you have not seen before represents a new design."

Hearing him put it this way, Shi Xuanman understood at once.

This so-called design fee was in essence the price of being ahead of the times, of buying the kind of singular, turn-heads elegance that Madam Jie had commanded at the banquet the previous evening.

"The service fee is even simpler. Custom garments inevitably require multiple fittings and adjustments.

"You are both young ladies, and trying on clothes in my shop would be inconvenient. I would have to come to your homes to conduct the fittings and make alterations. It takes time and effort, so charging a small service fee for that seems reasonable, does it not?"

Ji Qingzhou gave them a slight smile with a wink.

"When you put it that way, it does make sense."

Shi Xuanman was successfully won over. She felt that someone willing to explain so openly and honestly where every charge went was a rare and straightforward person to do business with, and found herself feeling a few degrees more trust toward Ji Qingzhou than before.

"If you have decided to place an order here, you are welcome to look through the styles."

Only then did Ji Qingzhou hand the sketchbook to the taller of the two, then leaned back against the sewing table, picked up his ceramic teacup, lifted the lid, and took a sip of tea.

Shi Xuanman took the sketchbook, and the two of them looked through it together.

The moment they bent their heads over it, their eyes were drawn straight to the graceful figures drawn across the pages.

They turned through it page by page and found that the women illustrated were not only dressed in qipaos of different styles and patterns, but beneath most of the sketches, fabric samples matching the colors and patterns of the qipao in the drawing had been attached, along with small samples of the corresponding trim and knotted buttons.

Even the approximate measurements and market prices had been thoughtfully noted, so that a customer could tell at a glance the rough cost of the qipao on the page.

The two young women were dazzled, flipping back and forth between pages while exchanging whispered comments, feeling that this one was lovely and that one was fashionable, unable to make up their minds.

After discussing for a good ten minutes or more, the two of them finally settled on their choices.

Shi Xuanman came over to Ji Qingzhou and pointed to a design in the sketchbook: "She wants this one."

Ji Qingzhou glanced at it. The sketch showed a full-front-opening long qipao in a pale yellow base with lilac floral print, paired with wisteria-purple complementary knotted buttons and trim, a straight silhouette, low mandarin collar, low side slits, and a subtly fitted waist with no darts. The main fabric was fine ramie weave with an inner lining¹.

All in all it was a light, soft, girlish style of qipao, and indeed well suited to the round-faced young woman.

"And this is the one I chose," Shi Xuanman turned to another page.

Ji Qingzhou was just about to nod when his brow furrowed slightly, a conflict rising in his mind.

Most of the qipao sketches in this book had been designed around fabric samples he had collected from the cloth shops, and the materials selected were ones generally well-stocked, for fear that a customer might take a liking to a style only to find the required fabric unavailable.

Yet what Shi Xuanman had taken a fancy to happened to be one of his early practice sketches.

A form-fitting right-lapel qipao with a subtle base color in pale tea-brown, the pattern drawn from the chinaberry tree branches outside his bedroom window, the blossoms rendered in colors chosen purely by instinct², a fabric that could absolutely not be found ready-made on the market.

"There is no ready-made fabric available for this design. It would likely need to be custom-ordered from one of the silk and satin houses, and the price would probably not be low. Are you certain you want this one?" Ji Qingzhou laid out the difficulty honestly.

Shi Xuanman's long slender brows drew together: "I have looked through everything and this one still suits my heart the best. The others are certainly fine, but there is nothing particularly special about their patterns. This one you drew is the only one that truly caught my eye."

Ji Qingzhou could see from her expression how much she liked this particular design. He thought for a moment and said: "What price range can you accept? I can go and make inquiries at the silk houses for you."

Shi Xuanman exchanged a glance with her companion, then after considering for about ten seconds said: "The fancily patterned silk on the market runs at around three jiao per foot. Since this pattern would need to be custom-made, I imagine three and a half to five jiao per foot would be about right. That is the price I can accept."

"I will note that down then. If there are no other requirements, I would ask the two of you to pay a two yuan deposit first.

"If taking your own measurements feels inconvenient, you are welcome to have someone measure you and send the figures to me afterward. I will write out a list of the measurements needed in a moment."

At this, Ji Qingzhou also looked toward the taller of the two and said: "If the cost of the custom fabric comes out to more than five jiao per foot, I will return the deposit to you at that point."

He said this sincerely, though inwardly he was quite reluctant to take on this order.

True, given the young woman's slender figure, making this one qipao would likely require no more than twelve cutting feet of fabric. However, commissioning a bolt of silk would yield at least forty or fifty feet at the minimum, making the cost investment rather substantial, and likely enough to clean out his wallet entirely.

And no one could realistically be expected to dye just a few meters of fabric for him. The order would simply be too small for any dye house to take on willingly.

There was a relatively more economical alternative, which was to find a base-colored fabric close enough and paint the design on by hand.

But for one thing, after browsing so many markets he had yet to come across suitable textile pigments. And for another, hand-painted sections of fabric tended to feel somewhat stiff, which would inevitably affect the comfort and drape of the finished garment, a flaw he simply could not accept.

All things considered, no matter how it was approached, it was going to be a great deal of trouble.

Of course, he could refuse the order, but doing so would not help him build up his customer base and establish a reputation.

He should have torn that page out long ago, Ji Qingzhou thought with deep regret.

"That is fine," Shi Xuanman agreed without hesitation, then just before handing over the deposit, she suddenly said: "Oh, and I would also like that outfit displayed outside your shop. Could you alter it to fit me?"

She turned to glance out at the shop front, a smile spreading across her face, a dimple appearing at the right corner of her mouth.

She was referring to a dress Ji Qingzhou had made before the leather jacket.

The top was a white Hangzhou silk blouse with long balloon sleeves and a large lapel collar. The bottom was a black taffeta high-waisted double-breasted hip-hugging fishtail skirt, the front panels overlapping, with a low slit below the knee³.

The fitted high waistband and dark gold double-breasted buttons were rather demanding in terms of figure, best suited to women with a long, slender waist and an elegantly mature style. The outfit had been made after the dress form arrived at the shop, taking only three days.

Once finished, it had been put on the dress form as a display piece and shown at the entrance.

Altering this outfit would be straightforward enough. The blouse was cut generously and would require almost no adjustment, while the skirt could be taken in or let out as needed, and there was fabric left over from both pieces, making alterations easy.

Ji Qingzhou ran a quick calculation in his head and named a price: "Nine yuan fifty."

Nine fifty for an exclusive new outfit in this style was quite a fair price, especially given that the fabrics were visibly of good quality, the workmanship fine, and the owner would be making further alterations to fit her measurements.

Shi Xuanman had no objection and nodded immediately: "That works for me."

The two young women then paid their deposits and left their names and addresses in the customer information book.

Ji Qingzhou thought that these two were fairly generous with their spending and might be cultivated into steady customers, so he handed each of them a name card.

Once the two had left arm in arm, Ji Qingzhou picked up his fountain pen and prepared to enter their names and requirements into his order schedule.

But upon looking more carefully at the customer information, his eyebrow went up.

Shi Xuanman... Fang Birong?

Fang Birong, was that not the writer known for her popular romance novels?

Had he just crossed paths with a celebrity?

And the other name, the more he looked at it, the more familiar it seemed.

Ji Qingzhou thought it over for a moment and finally recalled that this appeared to be the name of a celebrated singer, actress, and composer of the Republican era.

Shen Nanqi was something else. Future social elites, and she had reeled in a pair of them with a single move.

If these were not simply people who happened to share the same names, then these orders he would have to execute with considerably more care than usual.

After all, this concerned his future career. These connections were ones he absolutely had to hold onto.

—

T/N;

1). 'The sketch showed a full-front-opening long qipao in a pale yellow base with lilac floral print, paired with wisteria-purple complementary knotted buttons and trim, a straight silhouette, low mandarin collar, low side slits, and a subtly fitted waist with no darts. The main fabric was fine ramie weave with an inner lining', 'All in all it was a light, soft, girlish style of qipao, and indeed well suited to the round-faced young woman'. The following are sketch and dress generated by AI based on the description for reference:

2). 'A form-fitting right-lapel qipao with a subtle base color in pale tea-brown, the pattern drawn from the chinaberry tree branches outside his bedroom window, the blossoms rendered in colors chosen purely by instinct'. The following are sketch and dress generated by AI based on the description for reference:

3). 'The top was a white Hangzhou silk blouse with long balloon sleeves and a large lapel collar. The bottom was a black taffeta high-waisted double-breasted hip-hugging fishtail skirt, the front panels overlapping, with a low slit below the knee', 'The fitted high waistband and dark gold double-breasted buttons were rather demanding in terms of figure, best suited to women with a long, slender waist and an elegantly mature style'. The following are sketch and dress generated by AI based on the description for reference:

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