Page 74 of Unbind

She slides off my lap and turns in a circle, gazing at what she sees. ‘Well, you know the brand a lot better than me.’

‘Just like you know Gossamer better than I do. But an outside perspective brings its own value.Andyou’ve already admitted to stalking the brand, so I suspect you have many, many thoughts. I don’t want nice, polite Natalie. I want scathing Natalie. Like how you were with me when we first met.’

That gets a laugh. ‘Fine. So you want feedback other than that he seems to be a complete twat?’

‘That’s a given,’ I deadpan.

‘Okay, then. Well, for a high-end label, your total lack of sustainability strategy—or messaging—is a disgrace.’

I cross my arms. ‘Go on.’

‘There are many people who can’t afford to vote with their wallets when it comes to the sustainability of their clothes or their food or anything else. But your clients can.’

‘I agree.’

She sets off across the room, and I follow her, amused by her vehemence and interested to see where this leads. She stops at one of the cutting tables and points underneath. ‘I mean, stone-washed denim? Really?’

‘It was for an Eighties collection, I think,’ I protest weakly.

‘Yes it was. Last season. And there was no suggestion at all on your socials that the denim came from overstock. Have you any idea how much water this would have used?’

I have some idea. Too much. And she’s completely right.

‘What would you do if you were his CEO?’ I ask her.

She leans against the cutting table. ‘Give him iron-clad boundaries to work with. He wants to use stone-washeddenim, he gets his team to source excess rolls from somewhere. Don’t tell me you guys lack the manpower.’

‘We do, but it’s harder at his scale,’ I argue. ‘We need to be able to ensure consistency of supply.’

‘I get that, but frankly it’s a lazy argument.’ She scratches at her forehead. ‘There’s this quote I read once that still haunts me.The last thing the planet needs is yet another sustainable fashion brand.I lost sleep over that one. But I do my best. That’s one of the reasons we’ve grown more slowly—we spent a lot of time focusing on becoming a B-Corp.’

I frown. ‘That’s a big undertaking for a company of your size.’ I’m not entirely sure it would have been the best use of her time or energy.

‘Yes, but we wanted to get the right learnings and processes in placebeforewe scaled. Now that stuff is second nature. But you have a hell of a lot more infrastructure to help you work around those constraints, so the question is, why haven’t you?’

She’s glaring at me, and I fucking love it.Thisis the Natalie who first transfixed me, and the world doesn’t see enough of her.

‘The past few quarters since we acquired Vega have been about improving profitability,’ I admit. ‘I told you we’ve put some very strict parameters in place around what he can and can’t design, and what he can spend.’

‘Well, that’s lovely for your wallet, but all that tells me is that you have the perfect structure to implement even more controls,’ she argues. ‘He needs to be kept accountable. Look at that sequinned dress. I bet those are plastic sequins.’

‘Probably.’ I cringe inwardly, because I have no clue at all and I know she’s right—about the sequins and the rest of it.

She narrows her eyes at me. ‘It’s not okay, Adam. This is a big brand, and it’s only getting bigger. Make it part of hisdesign framework, and your workflow, and your bloody marketing efforts, for God’s sake. Talk about it! But only when you’ve done the work to get the basics right. The days are gone where designers can design whatever the fuck they want with no regard for the true cost of their products.’

I grin broadly at her. ‘What else? Tell me.’

45

NATALIE

Ihave to talk to my brother. This… thing with Adam is consuming me so rapidly, so ardently, that I’m going up in flames. I don’t stand a chance at withstanding his onslaught.

If it was purely physical, I could walk away. (I couldn’t, actually, but I’d like to think I had more of a chance of withstanding him that way.) But it’s not.

It’s everything.

Every moment, every gesture.

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