Page 1 of The Rebel of Seventh Avenue

‘I haven’t seen this in over forty years.’ My voice breaks slightly as I watch Mandy, my ever-faithful carer, minder, and friend, put the box on the table in front of me and carefully undo the faded ribbon, pulling off the lid and putting it to one side. I hold my breath as she pulls back the tissue paper and reveals a swathe of yellow chiffon.

‘Shall I lay it out on the table?’ Mandy asks.

I put my hand out to touch the fabric. As I nod my head, unable to speak, I catch a faint aroma of my old boarding-house room: candlewax and mould.

Cautiously, Mandy picks up the fabric, puts the box on the floor and lays it out on the table. A full-length gown, made from a pale-yellow chiffon with a yellow satin sheath under-dress. The chiffon is cut in a wrap style, swathed from the waist to the hem and then pulled upwards again at the back. There’s a chiffon belt that sits on the high waist. The long, tight-fitting sleeves are finished with a deep cuff of the same yellow satin, which is pointed on the top of the hand.

‘If you don’t mind me saying so,’ says Mandy, ‘this seems very unlike any of the other dresses and coats and skirts that we’ve been going through. This seems very…’ She hesitates.

‘Bland,’ I say matter-of-factly.

‘Well, I wasn’t going to put it quite like that, but now you say it.’ Mandy laughs nervously.

I lean forward and pick up the belt on the dress, also made from the same colour chiffon. I rub my finger along the irregular pleats and concealed fastening. ‘I made this thinking it would become my wedding dress, thinking I’d make something that, on the surface, looked conventional.’ I pause as my breathing becomes loud and a little erratic. I blink hard several times before continuing. ‘Pale yellow was the closest I was ever going to get to wearing white for my wedding, but I also decided to make it a dress with a dual personality, because, you know me, I don’t like to be predictable.’

I turn over the belt to reveal the reverse made from a burnt-orange slubbed silk and the initials M & J embroidered intricately onto the centre of the belt.

‘I made a double-sided belt so that once we were married, I intended to turn it over and show off a little bit of my personality. I did the same with the cuffs.’ Carefully I turn the pointed satin cuffs back on themselves to reveal the exact same embroidered initials. I run my thumb over the metallic gold and copper threads, picking at the tiny jet seed beads, pulling at the one pink crystal bead that seems a little out of place. My gaze deepens, no longer on the dress, somewhere behind it, remembering his smooth skin, the smell of his workshop, that smile, the way he so deliberately rolled his shirtsleeves up.

‘And then there was the under-dress.’ My heart is now racing as I pull away the chiffon to reveal the daffodil-yellow satin and pick up the side seams, showing Mandy the smaller embroidered initials, interspersed with tiny yellow daffodil heads running all the way down the sides of each seam.

‘Oh, these are so sweet. They must have taken hours to sew.’ Mandy puts her glasses on and studies the embroidery. ‘Why did you spend so much time on the under-dress when no one would see it?’ But before I can speak, she answers her own question. ‘Oh, I get it.’ She smiles. ‘Your husband would see it on your wedding night. He’d see all the effort you put into it.’ But then she frowns and puts her head on one side, her eyes narrowing. ‘But you didn’t ever marry…’ Her voice trails off and she looks back down at the dress.

‘No, I never married.’ I sigh, the memories clouding around me. Eventually I pull myself out of the reverie and say, ‘If I had, I fear that I’d have ended up making bland dresses like this. As much as I loved him, it would have stifled me, I think it would have drained me of all my colour.’