Chapter 5 - THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF HART
The morning after the gala was the quietest of my life.
The headlines were brutal.
"The Dress That Told the Truth."
"Hart's Empire Collapses in Blue Silk."
"Sloane Avery’s Brand Declared a Total Fraud."
I sat in my empty atelier,
the gold lettering on the door catching the early light.
Graham was in custody,
unable to post bail because his accounts had been frozen.
Sloane had disappeared,
her lawyers already issuing statements distancing her from him.
The phone hadn't stopped ringing.
But it wasn't the sound of failure.
It was the sound of the industry wanting to know what I would do next.
Naomi walked in,
carrying a tray of coffee.
"The board has met,"
she said,
setting a cup down in front of me.
"They've stripped Graham of his title."
"They want to offer you the position of CEO and Creative Director."
"With full control."
I looked around the room.
I saw the mannequins,
the silk,
the history.
I saw the place where I had almost lost myself to a man who didn't exist.
"Tell them I accept,"
I said,
"on one condition."
"We are rebranding."
I stood up and walked to the front window.
I looked at the gold letters.
Maison Hart.
"The name has to go,"
I said.
"From now on, it’s just 'Vivian'."
I spent the rest of the day working.
I designed without fear.
I designed without his voice in my head telling me what was marketable.
As the sun began to set,
a workman arrived with a ladder.
He began to scrape the letters off the glass.
One by one,
the pieces of Graham's ego fell to the sidewalk.
H.A.R.T.
When he was finished,
the glass was clear.
It was a blank canvas.
I picked up a piece of chalk and walked to the door.
I wrote my name in bold,
elegant strokes.
It looked better than the gold ever had.
I went back inside and closed the door.
For the first time in ten years,
the air was clean.
The silence was no longer a performance.
It was peace.
I picked up my needle and thread.
I had a new collection to finish.
And this time,
it was for me.
The story of the Harts was over.
The story of Vivian was just beginning.
I smiled at my reflection in the mirror.
The waist wasn't dated.
The structure was perfect.
And I was finally,
May you like
truly,
unbreakable.
