Chapter 8 - The Email They Wanted Buried
The diligence email was not the confession I wanted. It was worse in a more ordinary way. A junior reviewer at Wynn Retail had identified the workshop's nonprofit registration, noticed that the family bridal shop wasn't its owner, and asked for direct releases from each contributor. The reviewer also requested confirmation that the design files had been shared voluntarily.
Three days later, an executive named Celia Wynn replied: BUSINESS TIMELINE CANNOT MOVE. RESOLVE DOCUMENTATION POST-LAUNCH. The email copied Sloane, Mason and two employees I didn't know.
“Will this prove they knowingly stole it?” Ruth asked when Maya read it aloud.
“It shows they knew there was a problem and proceeded,” Maya said. “The implications depend on what else they knew, what they told one another, and the agreements. It's important evidence. Let's not pretend it finishes the case.”
I hated that lawyers spoke in careful stairs when my emotions wanted an elevator. But the more we learned, the more I respected the stairs.
A reporter had already left two messages asking which of us was the anonymous source. I deleted neither; I forwarded both to Maya and told the others. There would be no secret publicity plan made in my name. If any of us chose to speak, we would know what had been said and why.
We invited all seventeen women to a meeting with a community mediator. The purpose was simple: agree on what we wanted before the buyer offered us separate deals. I took a seat at the side, not the head of the table. For years I'd been the workshop's informal organizer because I knew how to draft emails and make budgets. This time, everybody had a legal and financial interest of her own.
Celia Grant wanted payment for the designs she planned to sell. Ruth wanted to prevent mass production under the existing agreement. Kiki wanted an apprenticeship she could actually trust. Two women wanted nothing to do with the brand, even if the company offered more money than they'd ever earned sewing. Odessa asked for the workshop's name to appear wherever its work appeared, but she refused to let Sloane turn an apology into another publicity campaign.
“We may not all choose the same thing,” I said. “Can we agree no one signs anything before seeing the complete terms?”
Everyone raised a hand. Ruth asked that all offers be printed, not only emailed, because two members shared phones with relatives. Kiki volunteered to make copies at the college. The mediator suggested a forty-eight-hour waiting period before signing any agreement, even a seemingly generous one. We added it to the minutes. Those small rules sounded dull beside a ruined wedding, but they were rules nobody in the room could rewrite afterward.
The mediator helped us make a second agreement. Nobody would be punished within Blue Thread for taking a separate lawful opportunity after getting independent advice. That mattered to Celia, who had worried we'd treat her as a traitor if she needed the money. It mattered to me because I'd seen what happened when family loyalty became a price tag.
At noon, Wynn Retail's lawyer offered a meeting. Maya insisted it include a representative of the workshop and a written agenda. The company agreed to temporarily pause new promotional use of the disputed pattern while investigating, but it would not yet promise to stop every manufacturing process overseas. Maya advised us to seek specialist counsel for stronger action if the pause proved inadequate.
I spent that evening at home with Eli, sorting the wedding gifts we'd managed to carry out of the gallery. A neighbor had given us two mismatched coffee mugs. Uncle Robert had wrapped a screwdriver set in floral paper. Ruth had sewn us a pair of oven mitts with little blue rivers stitched along their edges.
“Think we can use these without negotiating rights?” Eli asked.
I laughed for the first time in days. “Ask Ruth. She'll send you an invoice.”
He hung the mitts above the stove. It struck me that our home was becoming a place made of objects people had chosen to give, not objects someone had loaned on conditions.
Then a reporter called. She wanted to interview me about a trend she'd found in the garment industry's community partnerships: small workshops invited to contribute designs for exposure, then cut out after a major brand claimed the collection. She had heard of a similar dispute in St. Louis involving another designer connected to Wynn Retail.
I asked her to email her questions. I did not confirm anybody's name or share our documents. Maya and the women had to decide what they were comfortable discussing. Still, the mention of St. Louis stayed with me. It suggested the reviewer who flagged our signatures might have seen this arrangement before.
The next morning, Celia Wynn herself arrived for the scheduled meeting. She wore a practical gray suit and carried no photographer. She apologized for the distress caused by the launch and said the company took ownership questions seriously.
Odessa sat across from her. “Then why did you launch after your employee raised the question?”
Celia folded her hands. “We believed the outstanding releases could be completed.”
“Did you believe,” I asked, “or did you decide it was cheaper to believe?”
Her face changed. Not much. Enough.
Celia offered to fund an independent accounting and discuss compensation once the review concluded. The women asked for the existing production files to be preserved, a pause on sales and clear contact with the manufacturer. She agreed to document the requests and return with a formal response.
As she stood, Kiki asked one final question. “Did your company know I was promised a job for sending those pictures?”
“I did not,” Celia said. “I want to see the messages.”
After she left, Maya received a message from the diligence reviewer who had written the original warning. The employee was willing to speak through counsel. She'd kept notes, including one troubling line from a meeting she attended before the launch.
The executive on that call had said, “If we pay one workshop for provenance, we'll have to revisit the others.”
May you like
“Others. Plural. The problem might not stop at our dress.”
Before we left, Odessa folded the minutes into her bag and reminded everyone that the workshop would open at its usual time the next afternoon. “We still have Mrs. Fowler’s curtains due Friday,” she said. “They’re ours to finish, and she paid on time.” It was the first ordinary deadline anybody had mentioned all week. I found the sound of it almost comforting.
