Alexander McQueen Makes Bed Sheets Now

Author: Regency//Egalitarianmuse

Recipient: annaalamode

Title: Alexander McQueen Makes Bed Sheets Now

Fandom: The Devil Wears Prada (movie)

Pairing: Emily Charlton/Serena, though really more of an Emily study than anything.

Rating: G-ish

Word count: 4,889

Summary: Sharing shoes meant sharing clothes, meant sharing space. They did that anyway, but the shoes were a catalyst.

AN: I realize that you love fashion, so I’ve done a little research. As you make your way through the text, I’ll link you to some media that I think will help you enjoy the story more.

ANII: Inspired originally by these shoes from the Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer ’09 collection among many other things.

Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I don’t own any characters recognizable as being from The Devil Wears Prada. They are the property of their producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.

~!~

There was a code among women of fashion, about clothes and accessories; chief among them, about shoes. If there was anything that was not to be taken without permission, it was shoes. A borrowed purse could be explained, a ‘misplaced’ GF Ferre jacket could be returned, but to slip away with another’s pair of Alexander McQueen black and silver booties from the 2009 Spring and Summer Collection? No. There was simply no woman in their field that would tolerate such an act of vindictiveness.

Perfect ensembles were destroyed for want of an ideal wedge or a cleverly concealed platform. Reputations had been ruined.

And, then, there were the times when it was purely unintentional.

Like tonight. Or last night, Emily remembered somewhat guiltily.

She’d been helping an uncharacteristically drunk Serena to her bed when she spotted the most tempting sandals on the floor beside the foot of Serena’s bed. She hadn’t yet had the opportunity to review all of this year’s Spring Collections, but she knew Lacroix when she saw it. Ribbons, charms, and a lethal heel, she saw. Lacroix, Lacroix, Lacroix, she thought.

They were a work of art—and she had the very Christian Dior clutch to match them. So, she picked them up and carried them back to her room.

Of course, she never intended to keep them. She’d just wanted to wear them the next day to a meeting with the Chief Editor of Socialite. They made the very impression that Emily was desperate to make: that she was serious about her work, but could still be serious and devastatingly in-style at the same time.

Serena will understand, she told herself and strode down the chic minimalist halls of the Trent-Swayne building that housed Socialite. As Runway had been, it was the flagship of the publisher’s fleet. To be on top at Socialite was to have full-run of the company. Emily wanted full-run. Emily wanted to be the Miranda of this company. She wanted to rebuild it from the near-nothing it currently was to something truly great. And she could do it…

…With the right shoes.

~!~

It cannot be sheer luck, Emily thought as she took a seat behind her desk. She simply couldn’t believe that the fashion gods had looked upon her this favorably. With an adoring smile to the shoes that had made her morning a dream, she clicked ‘compose message’ and began what was likely to be an obnoxiously gleeful email to Serena.

She hit ‘send’ and sat back, resisting with all her might the urge to shout “Thank you, God!” even though that would have been entirely out of character for her. Had Trent-Swayne thought to invest in walls made of anything more substantial than glass, she might have taken the chance anyway. Alas, they had not and she had to content herself with a celebratory spin in her chair. She was out of this world. She hoped Serena would be as happy as she was.

Speaking of Serena, she spared another glance at the sandals for which she had to thank her flat mate and best friend. They had done great things for her in the space of a single hour.

Emily had arrived at the conference room second only to the assistant of the Editor-in-Chief. The slip of a girl had stood behind the head chair, shaking in her undoubtedly borrowed Chanel slingbacks. She had nodded to Emily, who simply raised a disinterested brow in return and took her seat. The others stumbled in later, matching patent leather expressions of fear on their faces.

The former assistant to the Devil in Prada herself had laughed inwardly, because they knew no such thing as fear. Claudia Kingston could only wish to attain an iron fist on the level of Miranda Priestly; all she had done to date was play dress-up. Still, they trembled and Emily sighed.

Once they were all assembled—their confusion obvious and their loins gradually ungirding—the assistant began to speak. She sounded nervous and stumbled over herself at the start, until she finally got to the topic at hand.

“Claudia” – just Claudia and not Ms. Kingston because she was trying so very hard – “is ill.” They had all gasped and clambered to be the first to offer their best wishes. Ill? Claudia Kingston did not do ill. Emily had read the disbelief all around her. She’d begun to finger the Dries Van Noten bangle necklace she wore—which she’d worried might have been too much—and wondered what exactly Claudia’s game was now.

If she was ill, she’d be unable to attend the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York. Her absence would deal a terrible blow to Socialite’s fledgling reputation. They had only been in existence for the past three years, of which Emily had been aboard for one, and their sales weren’t exactly keeping their competitor’s awake at night. They couldn’t afford not to cover Fashion Week, which could have meant only one thing.

“Claudia has asked me to take pictures of all of you in order for her to decide which of you would best represent Socialite as her replacement during Fashion Week.” The girl with a fair resemblance to Miranda’s daughters—if they were older and possibly addicted to heroin—smiled apologetically and held up her Blackberry. “Who wants to go first?”

Those words had signed Emily’s ticket. As she was the only one present with anything resembling personal style, her head-to-toe shot naturally stood out. She was a shoe-in and she would be shown in. It had been inevitable in the eyes of her colleagues and their fears were confirmed in the sixty seconds it took Claudia to sift through their digital pictures from her penthouse in Manhattan.

“She chose you, Emily,” said the nervous girl—ironically and pitifully named Nancy.

Emily hadn’t been in the spirit to mock her. She was too enthused, too overcome. Not that that she’d showed an ounce of her excitement. No, that would be for later, in a bar with the one person in all of New York who would understand how much this meant; then, in the townhouse shouting at the top of their lungs until the neighbors were too exhausted to complain. The woman that she wasn’t when she was at work had to wait.

“Hmmph,” Emily had murmured, rising from her seat and gathering the materials with which she’d come. “Well, don’t just stand there. I need my itinerary and,” she’d revolved quickly on the unsuspecting staff, “I need to see a layout—a completed layout—illustrating how we’ll be presenting the newest trends. And please, do try and make sure the trends you pick are, in fact, new,” she’d condescended. She had to; they could be so utterly hopeless when it came to recognizing what qualified as fashionable. It was a wonder that the company didn’t simply do away with the rag, for all it was worth with them at the helm.

Or so she’d thought then. So she still thought, although she was much less likely to admit it now.

Emily sat with a lap full of phone messages, all originally addressed to Claudia, all that needed to be tended to during the coming crucial week. Apparently, Claudia, however un-Miranda she may have been, had made it a point to build relationships with all the currently-in and eventually-in designers that would be showing during New York Fashion Week. Also apparently, it would be Emily’s job to maintain those relationships by having a word with every designer, attending every fashion show, and drinking at every reception. These were all good things, of course; things that Emily had looked forward to with bated breath since her days as Miranda’s second and, then, first assistant. She was absolutely elated.

She was also absolutely out of her depth. She didn’t talk to designers. She talked to designers’ secretaries and personal assistants. She dealt with staff, a lot of staff, but only staff. What she was having right now could be considered a crisis of confidence. It was the last thing she could afford. Clicking between the windows on her screen, she held her breath and hoped for word from Serena, which she eventually got.

It wasn’t exactly the kind of word she’d been looking for. Serena had written, ‘I had a pair of Lacroix’s last night. I need them for a shoot today and they’re gone. Please tell me you’ve seen them—that you maybe put them in a safe deposit box for safekeeping, because you knew instinctively how valuable they were. Please tell me you didn’t wear them.’

Emily couldn’t tell her that; however, she could tell her that she was on her way right now. Her new assistant looked on bewildered as she dashed through her office door. Emily Charlton wasn’t Miranda either. There’d be other times to be graceful and forbidding. For the time being, Serena was in a spot of trouble of Emily’s making; the least she could do was get her out of it.

Even if it meant coming back to work on bare feet.

~!~

Serena was unbelievably lucky—or as lucky as one could be while still working for Miranda Priestley. The Socialite offices were only three blocks from Elias-Clarke. If necessary, Emily could have—and would have—run the distance. As it was, she’d spent a knuckle-blanching fifteen minutes in the back of a very hot cab making the trip. The idea that she simply could have had them delivered to the shoot by messenger never occurred to her.

Her Blackberry firmly attached to her ear, she swept through the lobby floor without so much as pausing to flash her hard pass. She had once all but lived in this building, the guards knew her and knew not to get in her way. Were she in less of a rush, she would have enjoyed the thrill.

Nevertheless, she was in more of a rush than was likely healthy for the human heart and she could sense the approaching doom known as Miranda barreling down on her. She sped into the location, which for a change was a studio in the building. She threw herself into a cast chair and kicked off the shoes. Serena was already halfway there by the time she’d touched the charms.

There were really no words at the moment. Emily wanted to gush with a dozen apologies. It hadn’t occurred to her that these shoes were to be the centerpiece of the photo shoot, the photo shoot that had the potential to end or extend Serena’s career. They’d discussed this moment that had approached with all the subtlety of a nuclear warhead.

Miranda had grown tired of the way editorial photo shoots were done in Runway. She wanted something new, more authentic, more “breathtaking”—her word. She wanted something so original as to be unrecognizable to the magazine’s current readership. She had been prepared to fire the entire Art and Editorial staff to make it so. The only way they could hope to be spared was to design and execute the perfect photo shoot around a single article of fashion. Miranda herself would attend each one to observe and judge their vision, to decide if the future of her magazine could be found anywhere within it.

Emily held her breath as Serena passed the shoes to a non-descript girl in a frumpy if expensive coat. She moved quickly across the simulated cathedral floor to the model frowning unattractively in the center. Words were exchanged, not that Emily noticed. She was trying too hard not to have a panic attack.

Serena, to her credit, looked absolutely calm though her glasses hid the bulk of her emotion. Her hands, however, gave her away: curled into fists that looked ripe to strangle someone, namely her dearest friend. Emily felt as though that was exactly what she deserved. She really hadn’t thought about how badly things could go if those shoes had somewhere else to be.

They were just so lovely—and they’d fit! How was she to know?

You’d know if you listened, her conscience chose, then, to interject. That was not what she needed to hear. She just wanted to apologize in peace.

“I’m sorry,” she finally managed to say. The crisis was largely averted, though they were dreadfully behind schedule. She could hear the loins girding as the hour ticked to ten, uncharacteristically late for the unbearably prompt Editor-in-Chief.

Serena waved her apology away. “It happens to everyone. You know I don’t mind when you borrow my things.” She smiled weakly, one hand going to her temple to rub away visibly growing tension. “Just tell me. That way, I know when I need to get them back.” She shrugged. “You had no way of knowing.”

“Of course,” Emily confirmed, as happy to alleviate herself of the guilt as anything. She nearly asked whether she thought the model would mention to debacle to anyone important. She didn’t see why, all was well that ended well. Except…this was Runway. Telling tales out of school was how one got ahead. She really didn’t feel any better now.

Quite suddenly, she heard the sounds of clacking heels on the marble floor. She knew that sound, recognized the cadence of those feet as Pavlov’s dogs recognized the ringing of the bell. Instead of saliva, Emily secreted terror. I don’t even work here anymore and this woman may be the death of me.

Looking every bit as wired, Serena jerkily removed her own shoes and shoved them into Emily hands as she simultaneously pushed her towards a side door. She had enough against her, Emily imagined. Being seen with a less than beloved former employee couldn’t exactly count in her favor.

Emily didn’t take it personally, nor did she go back to work barefooted.

They didn’t quite match, but she felt like a queen wearing them—metallic twisted heel, platform, and all. And just for the duration of the ride back, she thought that maybe she could be the next Miranda. Or even better.

~!~

The first time she carried the handbag, the Queen of England could have walked by and Emily wouldn’t have given her a second look. She had been bestowed with the trademark of their brand and she was positively walking on air.

The purse, Socialite by Versace, was a delicious piece out of the designer’s 2009 Fall Collection. It was made of snakeskin and sported pure gleaming hardware, the vaunted trend of the year. It managed to be both functional and beautiful at once. It wasn’t any wonder that the magazine had immediately glommed to the imminently iconic accessory as their calling card. It was in the name, clearly meant to be.

And just as with any calling card, there were rules for its usage. Only those with the express authorization of Claudia Kingston herself could be caught alive—or dead—with Socialite in hand. Despite having a seat at the High Table, Emily had yet to be assigned the symbol of prestige. She was somewhat new admittedly, having been given the opportunity to skip the lower rungs of the ladder at Miranda’s recommendation, but she had proven herself capable of taking whatever Claudia could dish out. Long story short, in Emily’s completely humble opinion, It was about time.

In a matter of days, she’d be sitting across the runway from her former boss. As long as she could cool her anxiously burning skin against the stainless steel embellishments of this bag, she’d be fine. She had her touchstone. Now, what she needed was a drink.

~!~

Emily brushed back her auburn hair—fresh from a delectable haircut—and crossed her legs primly as she took a seat at the bar. She was feeling particularly classic tonight, her painted toes peeping playfully from the tips of her five-inchers. There was nothing like a red leather sole to give one the sense that they were at the height of fashion. She turned to Serena, who, having waited rather patiently for her to put herself on display, gave her the typical fashion maven’s once-over. Naturally she began from the ground up.

“Are those—“

“Louboutin’s Very Prive 120 peep-toe pumps,” Emily inquired aloud facetiously. “Why yes, they are.” She smirked, feeling duly triumphant. Then, she saw Serena’s legs, stretching casually forward as she adjusted her glasses. Emily blinked, almost blinded. “Are those…?”

“The multicolored Galaxy shoe, also by Louboutin,” Serena smiled, eyes wide with false guile. “Why yes, yes they are,” she mimicked. She uncrossed and re-crossed her legs, expertly displaying the 4.5-inch heel and positively heart-breaking palette of yellow, platinum, and black. Emily could see herself in the mirrored fragments.

“Lovely,” she replied, all pleasure gone, save that which remained upon seeing Serena look so good. Shimmer was in and her friend positively glittered in the trendy, moody lighting of the scene. She didn’t do jealousy if she could help it, but she felt—perhaps just a little—that Serena put her to shame. It wasn’t a feeling she’d ever been fond of.

“Shall we dance,” she was asked suddenly. She blinked and turned back to Serena who’d tucked her glasses away in a black Enigme Vuitton clutch, which she promptly handed to the bartender before prompting Emily to do the same—which she did, albeit warily. She’d been in New York for several few years now, but the barkeeps were ever-changing and she’d never managed to feel comfortable doing things like this. Perhaps she’d lived in the States for too long; she always feared being ripped off.

Heedless of her thoughts on questionable-looking bartenders, Serena pulled her towards the middle of the club where few others were dancing. It was a low-key affair and Emily only went along because this was clearly a song that Serena liked. Some mid-beat club hit by a band called Stars. Only for her, Emily mused.

She was still thinking of Versace and Socialite and whether she had the number to Fraud Protection written down when Serena began to move. Her hair, which Emily only now noticed hung loose, swung around her face as she spun, her arms rocking above her head. She was singing soundlessly along to the words and she didn’t seem to care that others watched.

Emily cared. That was how she’d been raised, to always care what the world saw. That said, even she couldn’t take that away from Serena. She rolled her eyes, hardly believing she was about to involve herself in these shenanigans. That was love—or like, or friendship, or, or…something. She didn’t want to think about it anymore.

Feeling a bit silly, she tried to find the beat and forget the scorching intensity of appraising eyes. It was okay for a while and onlookers were easier to forget than she imagined. Serena wasn’t, however; she was a pervasive presence that Emily could feel swaying closer on reflective heels.

You drop a coin
Into the sea
And shout out,
"Please come back to me!"

And then, there were none, no watchers or bystanders, just Emily being drawn into Serena’s smile. She looked pleased with herself and Emily found herself pleased, too. In that moment, she was envious again, this time of the light as danced tirelessly across Serena’s skin.

Funny, this feeling she didn’t mind so much at all.

~!~

Among the many feelings Emily was beginning not to mind, the feeling of being catered to was chief among them. That, in conjunction with the sweeping sensation of exhilaration that came after Serena kissed her lightly on the lips before rushing her out to her waiting car, was making her head spin. She had a car!—and a kiss! But that was for another time. Well, she’d always had a car, even when she’d simply been another woman’s errand girl. This was completely different, though. This was her car, a car sent to ferry her from home to her work. This was so different as to be an entirely different universe.

Still, she’d regained her composure in time to step out onto the red carpet at the first event of the week: the showing of the Heart Truth’s Red Dress Collection. On a Friday no less. She’d smiled and glad-handed the other Editors-in-Chief, all the while trying not to die of fashion-envy. These were the masters and mavens whose passions had fueled her formative years. The Burberry trench with a raised collar that hung so delightfully from her form only existed because they had forecast the trend. She was verklempt. Thankfully, her red and black tie-dyed Jimmy Choo Clue slingbacks had carried her into the tent and away from the press before she could bring shame to herself and her family’s good name.

The impish butterflies in her stomach returned as one of the many attendants wearing Bluetooths and carrying state-of-the-art Blackberries guided her to a seat near the end of the catwalk. She spied Jacqueline Follet whispering in French to a young man who instantly put her in the mind of Nigel. He seemed determined to fuss with Jacqueline’s ensemble, especially the ever-passé baroque collar. She wanted to hiss to him that some flaws could not be corrected, especially flaws such as painfully wrong-headed ideas about fashion genius.

She didn’t.

Jacqueline finally smacked his hand another time and he settled down. Literally seconds before the show was set to begin, the flaps to the tent parted once more to admit Her Majesty. And so the deserted seats in the very front row, directly across from Emily were filled with Miranda and all her entourage.

As though her arrival had been the opening act, the house lights rose once in recognition before falling dramatically to dark. Unsurprisingly, this had the effect of illuminating the woman to absolute godliness for an instant in time: her pale skin an unearthly white, her hair positively glowing, her eyes afire. Not to mention her shoes. They didn’t come more dazzling than those adorning her feet. In the flash, they’d given the woman the appearance of walking on light—not air, but light!

Miranda wore black Swarovski peep-toe pumps. Emily positively salivated at the sight of them. How could she not? She’d seen them in red. They weren’t publicly available yet, but had already been presented as a part of McQueen’s Autumn-Winter Collection. Naturally, the editrix would be given first dibs on ready-to-wear.

Emily sighed—her default response to just about everything now. Naturally.

She was no longer subordinate to this woman, she was competing with her—and, oh, what a steep competition it would be. She was choked by the reality of it, by the reality of knowing that she wouldn’t be here today had this woman not given her a chance. No matter where she went tomorrow, or what she accomplished, she was endlessly aware that she lived in Miranda Priestly’s debt. This epiphany was almost her undoing.

Her Socialite clutched in both hands, it was all she could do not to flee the tent to go hide under her desk. That seemed a safer place than here, right in this woman’s sights. Surely, she could see straight through Emily; surely, she saw through the designer costume with its designer price tag and thought, Poseur. Surely.

Emily dared to slide her eyes from the rail-thin models that lurched down the catwalk to the ungodly being that had inhabited her nightmares for all of three years. She was assailed first by the eyes that, too, seemed less than interested in the show they’d come to see. They danced across Emily’s features, perhaps on a search for recognition, perhaps on a search for familiarity—Emily couldn’t say for certain which or if she’d found either. She could say that eventually the eyes came back to hers and there was no recrimination as she’d expected. There was no spite—if there was one person who could express spite as a tangible thing, it was Miranda—and there was no disdain. They were simply eyes that sought, out of an impassive face.

Once an eternity had danced by and the procession of breathing wire hangers was retaking the stage for the grand finale, Miranda broke her gaze to inspect them at last. Emily, for her part, was at a loss for what to say she’d seen. There were dresses of many kinds and they were red. Fascinating, she’d noted laconically. She must have said it out loud because her right-hand, appropriately named Rita, jotted it down with undue speed, leaving Emily to wonder if she’d ever truly been that desperate.

Wincing, she stood. She knew the answer to that.

~!~

What she didn’t know the answer to was why the Lacroix incident had not taught her to listen. Listen to avert catastrophe, her conscience told her belatedly. It was rather irritating that way.

Had she been paying the sort of attention she should have to her daily life, she would not have been surprised by this latest development. She took in her new seat counterpart from a distance.

White Alexander Wang booties with the zippered backs and transparent heels that led to legs like the Golden Road were waiting for her at the BCBGMaxAzria show hours later. Attached to those legs was a fine form cloaked in what had to be a black and white Alexander Wang block dress and topped with a black wool-blend Jil Sander jacket. Just when it seemed that she could be no more a slave to fashion, Emily registered the same Ralph Lauren eyeglasses she’d become accustomed to waking up to.

Serena, she breathed.

Her dark blonde hair was tucked away in a neat bun and her makeup was minimal. It made no difference. She was worthy of the cover of a magazine right as she sat. Emily was stunned motionless, which was a bit problematic under the circumstances. Waking from her reverie, she allowed herself to be herded to the front row, once again, a straight shot from the Runway party.

Miranda had come and enthralled, but not Emily, not again. She only had eyes for one ethereal creature at a time and her attention had been stolen too quickly by one she knew too well.

Serena didn’t play any games with her interest. The smile she sent Emily was akin to a view of the Eiffel Tower at night, something wondrous under the sun that only grew more amazing under the stars. Emily could not help but to return it. She was that far gone and she was unsure when she’d gotten there.

The arguably sentient mannequins waltzed by her, obscuring her view of Serena, and she could only comment on auto-pilot, her experience spinning its own tale. Rita wrote at an admirable pace as Emily dinged the designer’s limited palette in a season where color was very in, comparing it unfavorably to the show she’d earlier attended but hardly seen. Red, to say the least was something, she thought, even if that amount of it had been a lot of something.

The show eventually came to a close and they all stood in ovation of an alleged genius. Brilliance in their world came and went with Miranda’s nod. Emily still had hope of being that powerful. For the time being, she deferred.

The Devil in McQueen smiled faintly and clapped politely, her enthusiasm sorely lacking. Emily grimaced, mirroring the look Serena gave to the designer. He accepted her silent rebuke with a great deal more grace than most would have. He waved, albeit less proudly than before, blew kisses, and escorted his creations and their hosts back to dressing rooms. He did it with incredible dignity.

Emily gave him greater applause for that.

Naturally, Serena had done so at the same time.

Naturally.

~!~

She was seven days into the seven-day event before she got the hang of it. She hadn’t trusted her assistant to type up her notes, so she’d expended a great deal of her off-duty time to doing just that. The shorthand became words, which became sentences, which became pages of commentary on what passed for class nowadays—and what simply failed. She’d lost precious hours of rest sequestered behind her laptop.

She would have lost precious hours of time spent with her best friend, too, if Serena had allowed it. More often than not, Serena could be found parked at the pillow beside her, designing new and greater photo shoots to sate Miranda’s growing appetite for innovation. As the newly-promoted Art Director, the pressure was on.

Emily didn’t doubt that Serena was up for the challenge anymore than Serena doubted that she would one day rule Socialite. That didn’t mean she didn’t wish they’d spent those victorious nights wrapped in more than the glorious spoils abandoned by careless models.

She wished, in the recesses of her mind, that she could devote a night, or a lifetime, to loving the woman beside her as much as loved the shoes she wore, or the ones that she’d ‘borrowed’ in a fit of mindlessness—only to discover them waiting, gift-wrapped, on her desk a day later.

No. She’d love her more. Someday, Emily Charlton would have the world to offer and Serena would be free to borrow it if she wished, or even keep it.

She wouldn’t have to ask.