Part III

That night, I walked into CORE by Clare Smyth.

Not dramatically.
Not with expectation. Just quietly — as if following a line I had already crossed before.

A soft light stood at the door, touching the old white bricks of Notting Hill.
Inside, wood leaned into ivory.
Copper softened into green.

Nothing here asked to be noticed. Everything here had already decided what it was.

I tasted the Isle of Harris scallop tartare.
Then the clear sea-vegetable consommé.

It arrived almost weightless — and then stayed.
Delicate, but insistent.

The broth was pale green, translucent, like the first light of morning slipping through London fog, moving past glass, resting briefly on stone that had survived centuries.

At the table beside mine sat men and women dressed with precision.
Not excessive.
Not careless.

Their movements were elegant, practiced.
Their distance intentional.
We were not part of the same room.
We were simply sharing the same coordinates.

I smelled the sea.
Then wood.
Then the faint mineral cold of old walls — stone worn smooth by history, interrupted by the clean reflection of modern glass.

For the first time in a long while, imbalance did not feel dangerous.
It felt instructive.

Later, I went to CSM.

I moved in and out of concrete buildings every day, surrounded by designers who knew how to think with their hands.
I walked through Soho.
Into old Maison studios.
The entrance halls were small.
Compressed.

Yohji Yamamoto once described this space as the fold between pleats —
the place you must press yourself into before you are allowed to enter.

It felt exactly like that.

On the wall hung unfinished fabrics: ramie,
stone-washed linen, and a piece of organically certified raw silk.

Material that had not yet agreed to become clothing.
Material that still remembered where it came from.