19454/Who made your dress

Who made your dress
Date of Scene:	08 November 2024
Location:	An unnamed pop up nightclub temporarily in an old industrial unit somewhere in Gotham.
Synopsis:	Stephanie goes undercover as a normal party girl at a perfectly normal party. Violet wonders if she's met an up and coming designer. Someone drinks multiple Apple Martini's and a poor flunkies name is never known.
Cast of Characters:	Violet Paige, Stephanie Brown

---

Violet Paige has posed:
The young, rich, and often famous elite of Gotham quickly bore with nightclubs and party spots. It's hard enough running a nightclub in general. Let alone in a city with rampant crime. Rather than take a risk and open a proper venue it's often quicker and cheaper to simply find a random warehouse. Pick a theme. Run for few weeks paying off the cops and the city. Then when people get bored? You come up with a new theme and a new location. Move your equipment there. And open another (technically illegal) it spot.

There isn't any advertising as such for parties like this. Word of mouth. Social media. Occasionally fliers around colleges. But if you're in the know you can find it. Outside a drab building with the sound of a local Gotham music act blaring through the walls. A pair of off duty Gotham PD officers standing by the door while a line of young people queue up.

Unless of course you're Violet Paige. Who simply breezes in. To jeers, whoops, and the snap of camera phones from those in the line. Just assuming she's on the list because why make a list if you're not putting her on it?

Tight black pants, a flowing top, sunglasses indoors, and a largely unasked for entourage. The socialite doesn't actually know the names of most of her hangers on. So rather than asking someone else to fetch her drink she meanders over to the bar area. A little circuit to greet those important enough to acknowledge. And really just to be seen by as many people as possible.

No point playing the socialite party girl act to hide your vigilante activity if no-one sees you!

When she finally reaches the bar there's a snap of her fingers. The expectation of immediate service. Her order? Something top shelf. Bourbon. No ice. Leave the bottle.

Stephanie Brown has posed:
While she might not be rich or famous, Stephanie Brown's got enough training in clandestine operations and tradecraft... and is enough of a social chameleon to have soaked up how to blend in with high society from her past social obligations alongside one Richard Grayson, that she can blend in with the movers and shakers, figuratively.

And while she might not have the sort of designer tagless attire that say, a Selina Kyle could afford, she can make due when she has to. Again, that undercover and spy training, knowing that while clothes make the woman, the woman also makes the clothes.

Perhaps a little literally, as Steph spent hours with fabric shears, her sewing machine, and some careful hand-eye coordination getting her slinky little dress together. Spaghetti straps were originally part of it, though the dress more suitable for a high school dance did not originally lack a back quite so thoroughly, where it once might have covered from just below her shoulders, there's a daring V now that ends just at the apex of her tailbone, revealing an awful lot of surprisingly toned, trim back.

The front has also met an early end in some ways at the blades of her shears, no plunging neckline, instead, the relatively modest V, which /does/ end south of her bust, might actually be lost to the fact that sequin-bordered gaps in fabric have been left along her sides and stomach, looking like she was attacked by a particularly scandalous weedwhacker.

It's daring. Brazen. But when you're trying to infiltrate Gotham's exclusive underground party scene, dressing to not be noticed is exactly how you get noticed. Giggling and a slightly exaggerated enthusiasm to every motion? Acting up every bit the giggling vapid party girl?

It's the party equivalent to state of the art optical camo. And it doesn't even need batteries! Really, Steph's main concern is her shoes. Not because she doesn't think she can fight crime in them if this turns out to be some sort of /crime/ party and not just a party party. But because even the modest 2 inch heels bring her up to 5'9" and people always notice the tall girls.

And her? She notices everything, or at least quite a bit, as her eyes dart and trace and catalogue the attendees, the staff, the brands... but only enough to not risk being /seen/ to be checking all that out.

Violet Paige has posed:
Ah yes. The tall girls. At six foot tall without the added height of her shoes Violet is.. hard to miss. Especially to Steph who happens to be both well trained in observation /and/ tall enough to have an easier time looking over the crowd. It'd be tough for a Gotham native not to recognise her too. Between social media, the traditional scandal sheet papers, and occasional TV appearances you'd really need to have worked hard to avoid her.

Which given her reputation for drink, drugs, and general bad behaviour does rather keep the crime stuff... well not exactly on the table but in a conveniently close drawer next to the table. The party itself. Well they're not officially supposed to be here and are breaking a fair few city ordinances. But it's hardly the sort of crime the Bat-family concern themselves with.

A little drinking. A little dancing. Maybe some people get served alcohol when they're twenty not twenty one.

'Violet's group' seem to claim a prized looking corner seating area. Everyone either rich, cool or hot. Ideally all of the above. It seems especially in demand simply through the virtue of being the only part of the club with open space.

It's rather like there's an invisible velvet rope cordoning them off.

Still if Stephanie was trying to remain totally anonymous her mission might be a failure. Tall notices tall after all. And that dress is. Well it's unique. Different. Is it from an up and coming designer? Is there a talent the in crowd have yet to hear about? Is the woman wearing it also pretty?

The important people must know.

A gesture here and a nod there. Steph will find the next time she tries to order a drink it arrives /very promptly/ and with no expectation of payment. And when the bartender hands it over with there's a shout of "They paid for it." and some pointing.

Violet does a little socialite wave, taking credit for money someone else spent on her behalf, pretty much the moment Steph glances that way.

Gosh who'd expect such welcoming behaviour from the infamous party girl? Maybe her reputation is unfairly deserved!

Except a moment later she nudges someone with her foot. Lipreading might pick up her telling them to 'fuck off and make room'.

So much for unearned reputations.

Stephanie Brown has posed:
Violet is definitely on Steph's radar in an instant... for one thing, when you're a well known, (iconic even?) socialite, people move around you like a shark parting the waves, and Steph definitely noticed that. But then Violet herself emerging from the sea of people? Well, that just rocketed her up the ranks of 'People to keep an eye on' in this club.

And really, that alone had Steph realizing she might be taking this 'job' too seriously. For one thing, she didn't actually come out on official Crime Fighting Business. She originally just came up with it as an excuse to end her months of solitude and sulking. Get back out for something that didn't involve running on rooftops and kicking faces.

Well, that wasn't /guaranteed/ to involve either of those.

And really, while Steph's hardly a hard drinking partier, she's trying to shake off some surveillance rust /and/ some... you know, living life rust.

Apple martini. She vaguely recalled those were all the rage years back when she couldn't drink. Which probably means they're like... retro now. The kind of thing a girl out to let loose orders on her own.

And when her third of the evening shows up faster, and free? Well.

That's unexpected. And then Violet gives that little 'I did that.' wave, and curiosity only rises further.

After all, either this is some elaborate trap! (Unlikely), or it's a literal ~mysterious stranger~ buying her a drink.

And they're jettisoning a lackey... party pal? Well, whatever. Someone's getting thrown overboard to the 'sharks' to make room for her. And you never turn down a chance to investigate an intriguing mystery when you're out clubbing. Or undercover.

She's just not going to think about how her tiny purse only has a battered flip phone for actual phone calls, not a bat gadget to be found.

She thought about bringing some, but the utility belt really clashed with the dress.

And so Steph slinks and sways and does a bit of actual shimmying to the thumping beat as she closes in on that private island of serenity and class in the club.

Because just walking over there would blow her cover. Because she's totally undercover. Right?

Violet Paige has posed:
If Violet knew she had just bought a stranger an Apple Martini she might not be quite so eager to claim credit.

Poor Party Pal Pete, whose name is definitely not that but which sadly for him no-one in the club actually knows despite his best efforts to introduce himself, isn't exactly being thrown to the wolves. He's given a fetch quest. Sort of. And when Stephanie takes her time coming over to say hi... Well it's his job to go be a dogsbody and make the invitation more official.

"Hey uh," he starts. Having waited until a few songs have passed. Not so rude he'd just yoink a lady off the dance floor in the middle of the first song. "Ms Paige wants to ask where you got your dress from."

He is otherwise short on details. But /does/ make a useful bulldozer for getting through the press of people. And through to the newly vacated seat.

Violet is by this point lounging in the corner and several drinks in. Barely even tipsy thanks to her habitual drinking. Her inner circle have been re-arranged in a more musical chairs style shimmying. It's not an edge seat in the group that's open. No the space is right by the woman herself. Likely because anywhere further away would make conversation impossible.

No point going to so much effort only to have to /shout/ at a stranger.

Eugh. How common!

A skilled observer probably catches a little motion of her hand into her designer bag. Hand brought to her face. Powdering her nose perhaps. So casual it's clear she doesn't care who might notice.

Stephanie Brown has posed:
Steph would at least have the good grace to be a fair bit ashamed about her tacky drink if it weren't for the fact that the majority of her college drinking was reluctant consumption of light beers best not named, in disposable red plastic cups, and maybe the occasional 'sangria' that was definitely just frozen fruit dumped into a big punch bowl filled with boxed wine.

But she does her best to carry herself like going out to the club is a thing she does, and has done with regularity.

Which is why when some random guy approaches her, she doesn't reflexively aim her drink at his eyes to be followed up by three swift blows to solar plexus, kidney, and the side of his knee to disable him.

Because that's something Batgirl would do! Not Stephanie, idle party girl!

But Stephanie the party girl /would/ drain her drink, hand it off to Party Pal Pete and then breeze past him, hips asway, smooth and measured, right up until her steps shorten in the last burst of motion to enter the oasis of Violet's private table only to chime out unprompted, "Hey! It's uhh..." She twists her lips into a slight pout.

"Wow, I don't even remember what brand it was, and uhh... well, the tag's kinda gone. It got scissored. I did most of this myself! I mean, like, all the modification. I have a sewing machine. I do a lot of sewing."

She trails off for a moment... surely no one would put 'I do a lot of sewing' together with her athleticism and jump to 'BECAUSE YOU MAKE YOUR OWN CRIME FIGHTING COSTUMES JUST LIKE THE ORIGINAL BATGIRL!!'

Even if Steph's got her own voice screaming that in her head.

Still, this lady's clearly a mover /and/ shaker. And Steph's got a chance to get an in with her.

For the intel of course.