So Close

Most of my larger pieces are glorified necklaces. They sit on the shoulders and drape over the chest, designed to adorn any simple shirt, from a velvet top to a cotton t-shirt. It's for this reason that they seem to be so popular.

While some advise me to use much nicer shirts on my mannequins than the t-shirts I have, it is because of the simplicity that I use them. For a long time my female mannequins, my womannequins, had stunning velvet or silk shirts on them, but some people would pass them by claiming that they didn't own such nice shirts. Once I began using the cotton t's, many more people began looking at them seriously. Go figure.

One day, at a winter craft show, a lady came by and just fell in love with one of the tops. This one was simple chain-mail with a curb chain adornment, designed to cap the shoulders and flow across the chest. And this woman had ample of that to flow across.

She was not a small woman.

I mean, she wasn't what I would call fat. She was just very large. If memory serves, she was nearly 6-feet tall, very large boned, and Rubens would have found her a tad on the lean side to paint.

She fell in love with this piece and asked ever so nicely if she could please try it on. Of course she could. No problem.

But then there was.

She wanted to buy it, and I reflexively said that I wouldn't sell it to her. Her face fell, almost in disbelief.

"I'm sorry", I stammered, "I mean, I will, but this one is just too small for you. It almost looks like a toy. I want to make another one for you, to fit. I feel like it needs about another 6 inches on the draping."

She was a bit dubious, but could see what I meant.

"How much more", she asked cautiously.

I quoted a nominal extra amount to cover material costs, and she immediately recognized that this extra amount would not really cover my time all that well. To be fair, though, I guessed it would take an extra hour, maybe, and that was worth it to me to ensure it looked good on her.

In the end, she ordered it, measurements were made, the piece was finished and sent off, as she lived a number of hours away by car.

And then summer came. She must have remembered that I was at Bastion Square in the summer, for she came by my booth, all sheepish. She really loved the piece, she said, but she just couldn't wear it.

Without a moments thought, I told her that I would either properly fit it to her, or refund her 100%.

This stunned her, for she hadn't encountered an artist that would custom make a piece and then offer to buy it back at full price. What can I say? That's how I do business.

She was super happy, and was about to hand it back to me when I asked her to put it on. I mean, I'm fairly confident about my work, and think that I sometimes know what I'm doing. I wanted to see where I went wrong, learn from it.

So she put it on.

And I bit back my smile. Well, I tried to bite back my smile. It kind of crept up on me.

"See? It just doesn't fit the same," she said. "I so love it, but it just doesn't feel right to me. Do you think you can adjust it? Or should I just get my money back?"

"I think I can take care of it."

"How long will it take?"

"Hmmm. I'm not sure. Let's see."

And I rotated it 90 degrees, so that shoulder caps were sitting on her shoulders instead of in the front and back.