#Chapter 203: Metamorphosis

Audrey With one last flourish, I took a step back from the mannequin to admire the gown that I had spent countless hours creating over the past month. Sunlight streamed through the large studio windows, catching on the beads and sequins I had painstakingly sewn by hand onto the bodice. The colorful fabric caught the light as well, so delicate that it was almost sheer with the sun behind it. The gown was perfect—it was absolutely everything I had envisioned and then some. But this wasn’t just any gown, nor was it just my thesis project. It was a tapestry of my journey throughout fashion school and throughout my life, each piece carefully chosen from projects I had completed over the years. Swatches of silk from my first-year color theory project, intricate embroidery from a second-year assignment, even scraps from the disaster that was my attempt at avant-garde in third year—they were all there, woven together into something entirely new. And soon,