Jesse Lives! - Pg. 10

“Ye….s…s…s?” you would say, drawing it out long in your best imitation of a know-it-all psychiatrist.
 
OK, here’s the secret. Most folks think that real designers start from scratch and don’t borrow any ideas from anyone else. That would be plagiarism, right? But it’s not so. The human arm is the human arm. It’s more or less the shape of a tube, attached at one end, and capable of bending in the middle. So any sleeve must be some variation on a cylinder that accomodates bending if it is beyond a certain length. The basic shape is defined for you. There are only so many variations on that shape, and most of them have names. However, the designer does have unlimited choice regarding the material the cylinder will be made of, how much wider than the arm the cylinder will be at various points, how long or short the cylinder will be, and how it will be decorated.
 
Now, say you’re making your dress from one of those patterns you buy in a fabric shop. You get the right size pattern, but you might adjust some of the pieces to fit yourself better, if you know how. Or you might adjust some aspects of the pattern to show off your good parts and hide your bad parts. Are you designing? It depends on the extent of the changes you make. If your finished dress can still be recognized as coming from that pattern, probably not. But there comes a point when it can’t. And at that point, you’re designing.

And even before I moved to New York, I’d done that. Besides being a scientist, I had been making custom-designed and fit sweaters. I’d even had one in a catalogue, but I’d underpriced it rediculously and driven myself crazy working a rediculous amount of hours for almost no pay. I wanted to know how to do that in a way that would pay, if such a thing was possible. And in meeting Rosa, I thought I’d just met someone who knew.

That Monday morning, as I approached the subway station, I was thinking about Rosa and kicking myself for a good number of things. I was so lost in thought that I walked right past Jesse and found myself at the bottom of the steps. Usually, locating a token in my coin purse required