"And you are?"
I hesitated only briefly.
"Creative development."
She nodded.
"Well, creative development, this isn't a classroom."
I felt my jaw tighten.
She looked back toward our chief operating officer.
"Please remind your junior people that I'm interested in commercial results."
He looked uncomfortable.
I lowered my eyes.
Not because I agreed.
Because I wanted to observe how she treated people when she believed they held no authority.
The meeting continued.
And by the end, I understood that the investor could be valuable to AVERY's expansion.
I also understood that any agreement would need unusually strong protections.
The final contract took six weeks to negotiate.
It was complicated.
The investor's company would sponsor the launch and receive defined distribution rights for selected garments.
AVERY would retain ownership of the designs and creative identity.
Production would remain subject to approved technical specifications.
The investor's company could use the AVERY name for the event only under an authorized licensing arrangement.
And the label retained approval rights concerning presentation, garment quality, and certain material changes.
There were also worker-protection requirements.
Our team had learned that some luxury businesses treated manufacturing as an expense to minimize rather than a craft to support.
I wasn't interested in expanding AVERY by transferring risk to poorly paid workers.
We required documentation concerning production facilities.
Wage compliance.
Safety standards.
Subcontractor disclosure.
And traceability for selected materials.
The investor complained.
Not about every clause.
She understood contracts.
But she disliked anything that limited her company's flexibility.
During one negotiation, she told our attorneys that AVERY was behaving like a multinational company rather than an independent fashion label.
Our lead attorney responded politely.
"These terms reflect the scale of the proposed collaboration."
The investor laughed.
"Your mysterious designer has expensive principles."
I heard about the remark afterward.
It almost made me smile.
Yes.
My principles had become expensive.
Not because I enjoyed making business difficult.
Because I remembered what happened when people with less bargaining power were asked to accept arrangements they couldn't challenge.
I wanted the collaboration to succeed.
But not at any cost.
Eventually, the parties reached agreement.
The contract established specific approvals required before the collection could be presented publicly.
The final runway presentation depended on a release authorization from AVERY after review of the completed garments and relevant production documentation.
That provision was important.
The investor's company had paid for the venue, marketing, logistics, and event production.
But it did not own the collection.
It had a conditional license to present it.
If required approvals were not obtained, the event couldn't lawfully proceed using the collection as planned.
This was not an arbitrary power I invented at the last minute.
Both sides negotiated the provision.
Both signed it.
And the investor's attorneys understood it.
At least, they should have.
The clause would eventually become the reason one phone call could stop a million-dollar fashion launch.
The trouble began three weeks before the event.
Our production team noticed discrepancies in several sample garments.
A seam allowance differed from the approved specification.
Two gowns used an alternate lining that hadn't been cleared.
A fitted jacket included cheaper internal components that affected the way the garment held its shape.
None of those issues was necessarily catastrophic.