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When i got into fashion, one of my goals was designing outfits for a shah. And even though i did that when designing Twilight's coronation dress, i couldn't help but to think that she wouldn't have chosen anyone else, even if they were better, because we were friends. It was almost twenty years after that that a opportunity of doing that appeared when Gavkatel, that griffon that had played drums in my sister's band back in 1986, and left the band to become a missionary, sent me a letter in 1999 informing me that she and her husband Golosistiš were about to accede to the throne in Kyiev and wanted me to make appropriate outfits for them.

I asked Gavkatel how such a situation had come to be; she explained that the triumgriffonate that was in place when Rainbow went to convince the Kievans to send a representative to the School had disaggregated itself when one of the members, a Vladimir, had restored the monarchy, on the virtue of being the closest descendant from the last high king, and reduced the other two into advisors, and expanded the advisory body to include herself, Swiatoslawa, Vsevolod, and Bogdana, since they had been helping on the internal improvements of the city greatly, although dilute the other two's power was probably also a consideration. But just a few weeks ago, he had died in battle against the neighbouring town, Pereiaslavel, appparently, and the five advisors were left to choose a successor amongst themselves. They chose her, and now they needed new outfits to suit their new positions.

So, i had to leave Sasansadel and Farnazeš overseeing the boutiques, and went to to Kyiev to see what i would be working with.

As it turned out, summoning me had been Golosistiš' idea; he always loved to look as dapper as he possibly could when he was a student and didn't want to reuse the late knyaz's outfits. in the other hand, Gavkatel, on her time as a mowbed, had become as frugal as a anachorite when it came to material possessions — her chest of clothes only had six dresses in it, all of them at least 15 years old, most of them white, and the ones that looked less worn out were her mowbed robes. and she still tried to insist she didn't need more than one of the outifts i was planning to make!

And, going there had another purpose — the outfits i had to make were supposed to be properly royal but not fleeing too much from what the usual griffon wore — their choice of faith already had some (mostly those that hadn't seen the light yet) wary that they were too close to Equestria as it was and adopting Equestrian fashions would only make things worse. Frankly, i wasn't sure if that was even necessary — most of the outfits i saw being worn in the street looked exactly like the kinds of outfits pegasi wore in the Pre-Ziragshabdarian era, like their fashions hadn't changed beyond that basic template for the last 3000 years or so. Granted, our own army uniforms didn't deviate too much from that style either even after all that time…

At some point, Golosistiš had the idea of sewing some distinctive national symbol into the outfits, and while i already had other ideas for what patterns i should do, having some sort of national symbol in the clothing would be fitting. but a tablion wouldn't do. everycreature else around our borders was already wearing these, from the Yauna hippogriffs to Princess Cadentia. i had to make something different. the city's closest thing to a national symbol was a supposedly stylized hawk, although it was so abstract that it looked more like a curved wall to me.

That just wouldn't do. i had to redesign the thing, making it less abstract until it looked a little more like a hawk. and although i wanted to switch the direction, they both agreed that it should remain upside-down. Even though it took me nearly three months to finally finish all the outfits, and that only because i had brough my sewing machine with me and a reasonable amount of fabric, seeing them in action at the coronation made it all worth it.
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Draw a character/characters reaching their dreams.

Made for the 9th Anniversary event in Derpibooru; three days to finish this. Gallus's chlamys mostly derived from Iznik pottery patterns.

Upvotes at import: 33 | Stars at import: 22
Posted previously at: 2019-10-15T17:01:55 | Posted previously by: Mildgyth