Laila held the sketch in her hand and saw that on the white drafting paper was a dress that clearly mixed Eastern and Western styles. It was described as a fusion because the collar, cuffs, and lapels featured Eastern design elements and embroidery, while the rest leaned heavily toward Western aesthetics.
"This feels a little... off," she said, clearly not impressed with the design. While blending Eastern and Western elements was a great idea in theory, this particular piece didn't execute it well. The combination felt forced and abrupt, as if the two styles had simply been shoved together.
Janet took the design draft with a light sigh. "I feel the same. There are so many ideas in my head, but once I put them on paper, they just lose their essence. It doesn't feel right at all. Why does your gown look so good, then? What am I getting wrong?"
Whenever she struggled with inspiration, she would always turn to her daughter for insight—and this time was no exception.
Laila passed the design draft to Li Zhimu, hoping to hear his thoughts.
But this left Li Zhimu in a bit of a bind. When it came to embroidery, he could probably go on for hours—explaining the origins and history of every technique from every era. But this...?
"I don't really know much about this either," he replied with a wry smile.
I mean, he was a grown man—how could he possibly know much about women's clothing? He didn't even shop for clothes himself; he just handed over his card. Designing? Forget about it.
Laila laughed and shook her head, realizing she'd made a pretty basic mistake. Who said that just because he owned an embroidery workshop, he'd automatically know about fashion design?
She flipped through a few more design sketches and found the same issue recurring: the parts that needed seamless fusion weren't well-integrated, and the transitions were too jarring. Moreover—
Wait!
She suddenly felt like she'd found the root of the problem.
"Mom, I think your idea to combine Eastern and Western styles is great. But you know a lot more about Western aesthetics than you do about Eastern culture. So, what you're calling 'Eastern style' in your design... isn't actually Eastern."
To be fair, her designs weren't exactly ugly. In fact, they might look quite beautiful to some Western eyes. But to Laila, Li Zhimu, or really any person from the East, they looked odd—off-kilter.
Janet had tried Eastern-style clothing before, but back then, the designs were purely stylistic, without any embroidery. Now that she was incorporating embroidery, the flaws had started to show.
Janet pulled a face. "So what should I do? Go back and start studying Eastern culture now?" She was a grandmother already—wasn't it a bit too late to start finding teachers and taking lessons?
Even if she did manage to learn it, would she still have the inspiration when she came back to design again?
She hadn't studied Eastern culture like Laila had, simply because she thought it was too difficult. The Chinese characters, the history—everything felt like it was designed to frustrate foreigners. Looking back, maybe she should've tried anyway. If Laila could learn it so well, surely she wouldn't have done too badly either?
"You don't have to go that far," Laila said. While she certainly wasn't against the idea of lifelong learning, Janet's core work still revolved around Western-style haute couture. There was no guarantee she'd maintain her interest in Eastern design long-term, so Laila didn't expect her mother to keep pursuing it with full passion.
She turned to Li Zhimu. "Would it be possible to show her some finished pieces from your workshop? Maybe a few embroidery patterns—just for reference?"
She knew this request might be a bit over the line. After all, embroidery patterns were practically trade secrets in an embroidery workshop. But Janet knew so little about embroidery that all the "Eastern" elements she used in her designs leaned heavily toward Western patterns, which was exactly why they felt off.
Still, it wasn't entirely Janet's fault. One, she didn't have much understanding of Eastern culture, and two, she simply hadn't seen enough traditional embroidery designs. Relying on guesswork and a Western lens—how could she possibly come up with authentic Eastern embroidery patterns?
So Laila figured that exposing her to a variety of authentic designs might help Janet better understand them and stop her from producing those odd combinations.
Surprisingly, Li Zhimu agreed right away. "No problem. We don't have the older samples anymore, but I'll have some new ones designed. Is that okay?"
Laila raised an eyebrow. "You're not worried about the designs leaking out?"
"Even if they do, it doesn't matter." Li Zhimu flashed a bright smile—his white teeth shining against his tanned skin.
"Our workshop only ever uses each pattern once. Once it's used, we destroy it, ensuring that no design ever appears on another piece. The samples we're giving you will never be used in any actual work. It's not that we don't trust your discretion; it's just that we guarantee every client receives a one-of-a-kind piece. Of course, if you want to use them in your designs, that's totally fine too."
His words made Laila instantly realize just how ambitious he really was. It seemed that from the very beginning, he'd set out to take this embroidery workshop to the very top.
To make a move like that required not only skill and vision but also strong backing. Without solid support behind the scenes, even the best ideas were incredibly difficult to realize.
Thanks to the speed and convenience of the internet—and the talent of the embroidery workshop's designers—the new samples were delivered to Janet within a few days. Li Zhimu also included several publicly known, easily found, and highly representative patterns.
To make sure everything went as smoothly as possible, he even brought several designers directly to Janet, so they could explain the meanings behind each pattern in person. The rest would depend on how well Janet could absorb the information and apply it to her own designs.
Once everything was arranged, Laila stopped getting involved. Her main concern now was her movie's box office performance—because it had just reached a global total of 2.98 billion.
Thanks to the impact of a few key photos, the film had seen a significant surge in box office numbers. But it had already been in theaters for a long time, and too many people had already seen it. This wasn't the age of the Titanic, when a movie could run in theaters for hundreds of days.
The photo-driven hype had definitely worked—but like all hype, it had a shelf life. Within half a month to a month, the buzz had mostly died down.
Even before that, some theaters had started to pull the film from their schedules. The ones still showing it were few and far between. At this stage, even the professionals said that earning a few million would already be considered a major win.