🥂 ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ─────────── melina could handle egos just fine, it was the battle to be boring she had a problem with. a lot of the models that came through the magazine were stuck in their ways; all of them knew what worked best from them, from the lighting to the colors they should wear, down to the cut or shape of the fabric. no one wanted to be the model known for the horrendous spread in one of the world’s most renowned fashion magazines. they all earned ( for the better or worse ) their spot in their respective spreads, and were never shy about letting melina know it. however, she knew the game and she played it well. there were some who didn’t care what she put them in as long as long as it was shocking, or eye catching. however, there were others who’d been in the game so long they just wanted to feel special, like their voices were being heard. with that, melina could relate.
she’d once been a girl so wide eyed with her love for fashion that she’d take any opportunity to talk about it. her classmates knew they could go to her for custom clothing, or a personalized shopping experience. melina knew how to read a personality, and she was well versed in bringing that personality to the clothing they were. no matter how many headstrong individuals she had to come in contact with. it’s one piece she was grateful she hadn’t lost yet. over the years, melina had to shatter herself into the thousands and hand the shards over to individuals who needed to see themselves in her. she’d given away so much of herself it was hard to find any of the person she had been left.
nothing brought her back to her roots than the freedom of creating. coming into arin’s shop always afforded her the capability to do just that. not only did he let her spend as much time as she wanted combing up and down the aisles, but they were more than happy to help with any request she had. no matter how outrageous. melina looked forward to coming into the thrift store, and sometimes came in on her days off just to be reminded of why she loved what she did so much. “ homestead ? ” melina was quick to get her interest piqued; eyebrows raised as the gears in her mind began to work just a bit harder. “ no you are absolutely onto something ! ” she declared excitedly, her ginger feverishly flipping through hangers. “ she wants approachable, so why not go the entire way with it. like those cottage core girls. keeps the model in her comfort zone, lets me experiment with color, keeps us on trend and up to date, while also offering a high end ethereal touch ! you’re brilliant, truly. ”
Arin’s goal had never been retail. Truthfully, Arin hadn’t held on to any specific goals for more than a few weeks--they were too fickle, too easily bored for that--but none of the dreams had ever been this. Oh, sure, there had been fantasies of designing, or of running a little hipster bar-slash-arthouse-movie-theater or coming so famous a street artist that someone hired him to do his own line of makeup. But they’d never intended to sell anything, other than themself. That didn’t mean they weren’t excellent at it, though. Arin was--to absolutely toot his own horn, thank you very much--pretty fucking good at matching what people wanted to what inventory they had.
It was why their favorite customers were ones who didn’t shop for themselves. He found more satisfaction helping someone like Melina, who was trying to make something out of nothing, than whatever rando kids wandered in looking for another piece just like the last one they bought here a few weeks ago. There was no challenge in that, and no decent end result either. So it was, in its own way, fulfilling to see the gears in Melina’s head start to turn as she put together an idea for these pants. It didn’t hurt that she heaped praise onto him for it, either.
“Yeah, I know,” he said. He slung the pants over his shoulder and turned to the skirts section. “I dunno what you want, hem-wise, but we have a bunch of skirts back here. People doing their winter purge or whatever. There’s a few decent pieces, and some mediocre ones that might be fun to doctor up.” He paused, watching Melina take those in for a moment. “Is she, like, trying to save her image from something? Or just wants to be approachable in general?” It wouldn’t make a difference to Arin in terms of clothes, but any time he could hear interesting celebrity gossip--even for a celebrity he didn’t know--he was all ears.
