Britches and Stitches 2

It was truly annoying to keep getting customer reviews that wanted employees to have a uniform.  Madeira had ignored the first dozen, since they had all been from the same pride bun and she’d gotten the distinct sense that he didn’t like having to remember that servers were unique individuals too.  She had ignored the next dozen, made after he had stopped coming in, because she just thought it was stupid, but after still more this week - including one from a new hire of all people, she was grudgingly going out to at least look into the concept.

Not that she really intended to follow through on doing it.

She’d hated the uniform she’d had to wear when working at the Wonderland Casino.  Five years of constantly having to keep that leotard from riding up her butt had made her absolutely certain that she would never make her employees wear a uniform.  Oh, it made it more difficult to tell who worked at the diner and who didn’t?  Too bad, her employees all had name tags, why did they need a special outfit?  People could try paying attention, if they so badly needed to know who was an employee and who wasn’t.

Well, at least if she went to look into it, she could say she had and had decided based off of that.

Most clothing stores wouldn’t really work for the task, but she’d spotted a few reviews that said this new place called Cottontail Couture often let visitors try piecing together outfit designs, so she figured she might as well try there.

There was a plump bun working on a mannequin when she entered, a pincushion in hand.  “Welcome to Cottontail Couture!  I’m Peter.” he declared, as the door’s bell jingled.  “Is there anything I can help you with today?”

“I saw online that you often allow visitors to try their hand at making garments,” Madeira said.  “Is that correct?”

“Yeah, usually I give a bit of a tour first, to let them see what we have, and of course you pay for any materials used.”

“Makes sense,” Madeira said.

“I’ll admit, usually when people come in, they’re just interested in the tour and it’s more my suggestion than their idea.”

“Is that bad for your business?” she asked, curious.  She’d wondered it just seeing it mentioned online.

He grinned slyly.  “No.  Most buns who try it swiftly realize the value of my professional expertise in making clothes,” he told her.  “I assume there’s something you’re looking to make in particular, though?  If you’re experienced, I’m surprised you didn’t just do it at home.”

Madeira sighed.  “I keep getting reviews that complain my employees don’t wear uniforms,” she said, grimacing.  “I don’t really…want them to, though, but at this point I figure I ought to have some sort of example to make them shut up about it.”

Peter laughed, covering his mouth with his hand.  “So you’re… hoping to make something bad on purpose?” he asked.

“Precisely so,” Madeira said, laughing softly.  “If I wanted to do it, I’d hire someone to design it - but I like having my customers forced to see their servers as individuals and treat them accordingly.  I don’t want my diner to have the environment I see in places that do give their employees uniforms - I don’t want customers to see the employees as beneath them, and I don’t want them to consider them as like… interchangeable robots.”

“That’s a very interesting perspective,” Peter said, tilting his head in contemplation.  “I don’t think I’ve heard it before, but I think I can kind of get what you mean by it.  I’m interested to see how you go about trying to make a uniform that’s bad on purpose, so let’s start this tour then.”

She didn’t know much about materials, so they spent much of his tour on the differences between each type of fabric, and what made them better or worse compared to others, as well as Peter explaining to her how garments were constructed.

Soon enough, she had picked out a series of materials to work with for it, chosen for their specific lack of suitability to working in food service.  She’d selected a white fabric for how easy it was to stain - and the difficulty involved in cleaning it - along with three different blue fabrics that she thought clashed interestingly with one another.  One of them was covered in sequins too, which she thought would seem quite unpleasant to wear - especially if she made it into a pair of shorts, with one side of the shorts having the sequins face in towards the skin.

Peter seemed fascinated by the process of how she had selected each fabric, and as he helped her to draft a pattern, he kept having to take breaks to laugh.  “Sequin side in?” he asked, as he finished checking over the pattern for the shorts.

“Can you think of anything more unpleasant to wear?” Madeira asked, grinning.

“I’m not sure I can,” he admitted, amused.  “Usually I think of comfort and looking nice for my designs, but I do find this a fun creative exercise.  It’s challenging to go against what I know looks good and feels good to wear.”

Madeira chuckled softly.  “I’m pretty sure if I was actually going to pick a uniform for them, I’d probably just choose something like my dress, and then adapt a version that allows pants as well.  I just don’t see any reason to do it, not for the diner at least.  Maybe when I can afford to open a second restaurant that’s intended to be more high brow I’ll have some sort of uniform or dress code there, in spite of my dislike of it, but for a diner…”  She shook her head, beginning to work on cutting fabrics.  “I don’t know.  I just want my employees to be happy at work, and are you really happy if you can’t wear the clothes you feel good in?  If you have to look like everyone else around you?”

Peter nodded understandingly at that.

Slowly, the ‘uniform’ took shape, and soon enough, with Peter’s help, it had been pinned together, and then sewn.  It was deeply ugly - if the shorts, with one side sequined on the outside and the other sequined on the inside, weren’t bad enough, the shirt was a wrap top, with one side in white and the other side seeming haphazardly patched together from three different blue fabrics, one was very shiny, one was very sheer, and one was denim.

“I don’t think I could ever in good conscience put this on a runway,” Peter said, laughing again as he beheld it completed.  “But I imagine your employees and customers will quite quickly decide that they prefer no uniforms.”

“I certainly hope so!” Madeira said, laughing as well.  “Do you know where I can buy a mannequin?”

Once she had paid for the materials and had an address in hand to buy a mannequin from, she headed out - but not before promising Peter that she would come back to let him know how the ‘uniform’ was received when she put it on display in the dining room.