The Seamstress – Part 1: Measuring Tape

"Every body is a conversation," said Joana.

Inês held the tape measure, looking at the dress form. The Porto atelier was bright and cluttered, with bolts of fabric against the walls, shelves of buttons, and a large cutting table scattered with pattern paper. Sunlight fell through the tall windows onto the checkerboard floor. A radio played soft fado.

She was thirty-one, a fashion graduate, nervous, in a neat white shirt, with her dark hair pinned back. Joana, the seamstress, was thirty-five, tall and strong, with sleeves rolled to the elbow, a pencil behind her ear and a pin cushion on her wrist. Her hands were quick and sure.

"Not like that," she said gently. "Hold the tape flat. Don't pull. You're listening, not arguing."

"Listening?"

"To the person. Where she is soft, where she is strong. How she moves." Joana demonstrated on a real client, a tall woman in a floral blouse, who laughed and stretched out her arms. The tape curved round her ribs like a ribbon. "See?"

Inês saw. For weeks, she watched. She learned to read shoulders, to find a client's natural waist, to pin a hem without pricking. She learned that Joana hummed when she worked, that she sang under her breath while thread-snipping, that she kept a tin of butter biscuits in a drawer for nervous brides.

One afternoon, Joana lifted her hands, smiled, and said, "Your turn."

"Mine?"

"I want to make you something."

Inês stood on the little platform in the centre of the room, in her slip, trembling. Joana circled her slowly with the tape, murmuring numbers. Her fingers were warm, brief, professional. Inês's skin prickled all the same.

"Breathe," said Joana, softly.

"I am."

"You are holding it."

She let out a breath. The tape slid round her waist. Joana's face, close, was calm and absorbed, her lashes lowered.

"Can I ask you something?" said Inês.

"Yes."

"What are you making?"

"Green?" said Joana, with a quiet smile, a bolt of silk. "A very green dress. You'll see."

Continue the story: Part 2 – The Fitting.