19th April 1563

Amaranta came for the first day of work, her own doubts being minor. All of it had been favourable, and with Bianca she supposed that it wouldn’t be that bad. They offered much benefits to employees.

At the entrance, Cecilio was awaiting her to enter with him, in a simple shirt, and his vest. “Great to see you, Amaranta.”

She gave a bright smile in return. “I’m really looking forward to starting.”

Cecilio led her throughout the maze of the halls that was the theater.

She had gone to an arts school, meant for the wealthy with a passion in the arts. But the inside of a theatre was something that she didn’t become acquainted with, not at all. Until now, for the first time, she could see what laid behind the doors. Not the front stage where the performance took place.

It was an old theater, she could tell with the high chandeliers instead of the simpler lamps. Cecilio walked straight at a slow speed. Bringing her to a relatively large room, inside with many fabrics piled up. And a few empty mannequins standing near a workstation.

Amaranta moved over to one workstation, Cecilio not stopping her. “This is your table, and mine is across the room. There is another colleague which I’ll be introducing you to her later, she is behind you.”

Amaranta nodded at the instruction. “What should I start with?”

“I’m finishing a piece for the new opera about to debut tonight, you’re taking over the piece I assigned to the previous costumer.”

Amaranta looked at the unfinished garment. The last layer of it wasn’t done yet, with all the materials needed laid out beside her.

She would need to make the cut. Amaranta smiled at the sight.

“How long do you need before you can finish it?” Cecilio asked Amaranta.

“I think within a few days.”

“If you need any help, come to me,” Cecilio said, before moving straight to his workstation. He had work to do.

Amaranta grabbed her ruler and a pen, mostly to begin with cutting the cloth to the measurements given to her by the previous costumer. All that was left was to make the last layer. He didn’t wish to overload her from the beginning, and this was a chance for him to asses what work she needed to do.

In most commercial dresses, there was little need for creating the petticoats, for they had their own which they used and it was never mass produced or bought. But she supposed that this was a much older tale, requiring them to create the undergarments too.

The silhouette of the entire dress would change if Amaranta used the stay they used now. It was perhaps the first thing she learned while in school, with making dresses for the theater. Faithfulness may not be necessary all the time, but with most being able to view and see such dresses, they supposed it was unwise to divorce it too much from the actual history.

The dress was half-finished. It was a little strange that she couldn’t even finish this piece on her own. Even as she took the measurements for at least a dozen other, with some of them just boiling down to a simple size.

One thing that Amaranta could understand in just a letter. She worked with the measurements given, already cutting the cloth to make the clothes.

They worked in absolute silence. Once lunch came, Amaranta craved any form of talk, particularly with her friend Bianca. The silence allowed her to focus, but she wanted to speak.

Cecilio had approached her, “Lunch is on me, I couldn’t give you a proper introduction since I’ve been swamped with work. I’m still looking for a new costumer to handle more of the costumes here.”

“I’ll try to finish everything that I can. Maybe I can help you since I know about sizing for gentlemen.” Amaranta offered.

“Thank you for it, just finish it and then we’ll see.” Cecilio gave a smile back to her.

Amaranta stood up. There was something she wanted to show him. She looked down at the cut of the dress, wondering whether it was good enough. But this was a moment. Her superior was already going to leave soon. She walked forward without hesitation. Her own doubts wouldn’t matter, and it wasn’t as though he expected incredible work.

“It’s not a matter, do you think this is okay?” Amaranta asked.

“It fits what we were going for, although later I’ll get Sabina to check in with you for this instead. She’s another costumer, and she’s working on a more important piece.”

Amaranta nodded and then to follow him for lunch. “Where would you go?”

“There’s this restaurant just near the theater, it has always relied on our patrons deciding to go there. As much as it is about us,” Cecilio told her. The size of the theater was huge, not a single person denied it. She would have gotten lost without a guide.

They came to a smaller building, not nearly as large. The first in a long street, it was a little further from the bustling squares filled with people walking. A glass door, a sign hung to say that it was open and started for nearly a century.

Cecilio brought her to the nearest table, silently for there was too much noise to talk. There was another woman seated there. Raising her hand at Cecilio. She was of average height, with a round face and brown eyes, her rather thick lips curling into a smile. Cecilio took a seat beside her.

She took a seat opposite both of them.

“It’s on us, since it’s your first day,” Sabina said, with a warm smile towards Amaranta. “I had to take some measurements today, that was why I couldn’t give you a tour.”

The woman then turned to Cecilio. “How did the work go?”

“She did rather well, quickly taking over from Gina,” Cecilio answered.

Amaranta held her head a little higher.

“It’s nothing much. She left a sizing that I knew, so I just did it to what she recorded down for me.”

“That’s something new that I didn’t learn,” he said. Previously, it was just for men. For it was only men who needed it during the times of war to manufacture uniforms.

“There was an entire class of new fashion designers who had done it, mostly for working women. It helps to classify them since I know that I’m unlikely to make a mistake when I think of it,” Amaranta explained.

“That’s interesting, I didn’t know that was catching up,” Sabina said. Before continuing to do so. “Tell me more about it later, Gina wasn’t here for long enough and she wasn’t very talkative. Though I guess she knew it because she worked for a boutique before she came over.”

“I guess you don’t use any for making gowns?” Amaranta asked.

“You could say that, I never learned much of it,” she said. “But I supposed it had a lot to do with it, depending on who you learned your trade from. So, there wasn’t a way to ensure a standard.”

“That made sense,” she said.

Amaranta knew that she had chosen something else from all her classmates, but most always wanted to act. There was only about a true quarter who learned what happened backstage, and split equally based on stage work, prop-making and costuming. But most of them learned all three.

“I was from here, I grew up here. But when the time came, my parents sent me to that specific school since it was prestigious.” She had completed her education and left at this point.

“How did she leave?”

“Gina was fired, and she needed to leave the same day,” Cecilio said. “She was fantastic at her job, although too curious.”

“I heard that she found work at another city, a much smaller town working as a seamstress, and she seemed to be really doing well.”

Amaranta ate a little. “How long was she here for?”

“Not much longer than a few months,” Sabina said. “It’s quite common, I’ve only been here for a few years. And Cecilio came the year before. Most of my seniors had left for better opportunities. The work here is pretty amazing, the pay here is good. But they always said that they didn’t feel exactly welcome here.”

Amaranta took another bite before taking a sip of the water, trying to shield her own mind. This job would be a phase. She would leave once she had become a success.

She knew the change being so rapid was odd, but she could be wrong and such a rotation might even be common amongst the theater, unlike others, who kept their workers for a lifetime.

The trio into silence, not really continuing the conversation.

“It’s a lot to take in, but as long as you show up, it won’t be that hard,” Cecilio said. Trying to assure her, but not that which had made Amaranta a little nervous. But she could shake it off.

“Thanks,” she said. Before they went back to the theater located inside.

Once Amaranta walked inside, back to their workroom. Sabina was already waiting for her in her dark blue dress, covering her entire neck closely, with the sleeves just a little wider to allow for room to move.

Sabina gazed at the table containing all of Amaranta’s progress with the frock. “The work looks decent so far, feel free to approach me if you have questions.”

“I will,” she answered back. Before taking a seat and continuing to work.

Once she had completed her work, seeing that she had fulfilled her time. Except she could get feedback now, when it was possible for her to ask for something. She moved to the back, only to find it empty.

“Do you know where should I find Sabina?” Amaranta asked Cecilio.

“She’s in the room next door, she’s there to finish one special piece, mostly done but needing a minor alteration.” She thanked him. He continued working on his next piece of clothing and needing to finish a couple of them. He had divided them into the different garments, such as the coats, the shirts and the breeches. Since this was an older piece, with trousers not being used.

Amaranta moved over to find Sabina, who was working on perhaps the most beautiful piece of clothing. The costumer was kneeling on the ground, making some slight measurements and as it seemed tracing. And there, she was referring to a traced copy of perhaps a portrait of a Queen to help her in making it.

“What do you think about it?” Sabina looked at her.

“It looks amazing, is there nothing else as reference?”

“Well, we didn’t have enough of the material to do so. So I didn’t have much choice other than to use the measurements,” she said. Amaranta could guess that they made the gown of satin, which would explain just why it was expensive to work with.

She only owned a few such dresses, three of which came from her late mother, and one that she made buying her own cloth and finished on her own. Even the price of satin cloth made her hesitate a little.

“Can you look at a finished dress for me?” Amaranta asked, wanting to make sure she was on the right track. Her steps were slow, bracing for the chance that it wasn’t to her liking, and her words would bluntly state it.

Harsh words hurt her, always, but once she got over it, she came back intending to prove those words wrong.

“I can,” Sabina said. Before letting Amaranta lead her next door to see the finished gown. It was a simple dress, since it was expensive, meant for a lady-in-waiting of a queen, she would not be incredibly rich but not in rags either. They were typically of noble origin.

“This would work, it’s rather well-made. The modernity of the dress wouldn’t matter too much, since this isn’t a dress with a heavy structure apart from the farthingale.” Sabina touched the dress.

“The sleeves are wide enough, and the shape resembles it.” Sabina held the sleeves up as Amaranta leaned back, keeping herself still, allowing herself to know that she had done well. Even as she learned that its looseness had a lot with keeping cool, to get more circulation in the hot weather and allow for sweat to not stick.

“Excellent work, this is what I would expect from a costumer,” Sabina said. “Did you learn about historical dresses?”

“Yes, a lot, mostly through passion and buying older books that documented them.”

“You should leave for the day,” Sabina suggested. Not holding it against her. She was going to work with the both of them only.

“Aren’t you both leaving?” Amaranta looked at it for the timing too.

“We kind of can’t, besides they don’t like to have new hires around after typical work hours.”

Amaranta didn’t wish to question it too much and walked out, grabbing her needles and putting them into her dress pocket. She sewed them into every dress, since it gave her plenty of space to hide things without needing to carry anything extra.

Once she was out, she took a few turns trying to remember how she came here and left. Realising that she lost, since the rows were all too similar to each other. More than enough for her to wonder where she should go.

She walked to the next opening that she could, thinking it would be easier, into an area which felt so different. Inside, there were swords hung on it. It wasn’t just the chandelier she saw in the other directions. The change reminded her of a palace, venturing into the private rooms. There was a painting of a bowl of fruit, and another of an old theater.

Amaranta knew the theater in the portrait. It was used by the royal family and the wealthiest patrons who could afford to pay the ridiculous price of entry.

She had been there as a child, with her parents still alive, sitting at a gallery with her family to see an opera. That performance was perhaps the first time she felt ignited to pursue her own dreams as a costumer. She etched the entire place into her memory, memorizing it the best when they were in their carriage leaving.

She stood up, looking, trying to not forget it.

“Are you the new costumer?” The woman asked, her eyes staring onto her, similar to a guard protecting the secrets.

“Yes.” Amaranta pushed back a loose strand of hair. “I got lost. The company once performed at this theater?”

Amaranta’s eyes going back to the mesmerising picture of the theater, remaining the same for more than a century since they built it.

“The then Grand Duke of Terraiga gave us this portrait, after the performance,” she said, looking at it with pride.

Amaranta took another glance at the portrait.

“How about I show you out?” She asked, not even telling her the directions but escorting her out of the theater.

Amaranta stood just below the steps, the actress standing above her. She wasn’t leaving either.

“It’s not an issue, just memorise the directions I showed you,” the actress said. She turned around and left.

Amaranta remained there for the moment, going through what just happened. It was unusual, that was definite. She walked off.