Sweetie Belle was lazily reading a comic book as her sister raced around her workshop in her usual frantic pace. Their parents had left her into her big sister's care for the weekend, and so she was condemned to the upper floor of the boutique, where Rarity could keep an eye on her.
Sweetie Belle looked up to one of the costumes Rarity was attending to. It was a white frilly thing, with intricate detail in every stitch. Still, its perfection wasn't enough, as her sister was poring over it, criticizing herself and noting what she had to change.
"I don't get it," Sweetie Belle said, "What's the point of all that detail? Nopony's ever going to notice it."
Rarity laughed off her sister's objection. "It's fashion. If you skip out on details you know you could have added, the ponies with pull will notice. Going above and beyond in dressmaking isn't desired, it's practically mandatory!"
"But what about that stuff you never do?"
"How do you mean, Sweetie Belle?"
"Well, you know that silk stuff that kinda looks gold? I never see you mixing that with the silver stuff."
Rarity chuckled, walking over to her sister and giving her a slightly condescending pat on the head. "Oh, that's because doing that would break a very old rule. Rule of tincture."
"Tintawhat?"
"Rule of tincture. Never mix metals with other metals. There are many rules for design, and I pride myself on knowing every single one."
"You ever broke any?"
Rarity pulled back, her face scrunched. "Well, as with all rules, you can bend them. I might have had to ignore one or two, but only if I was absolutely sure the end result would be worth the scandal of breaking it!"
"So how are they rules if you just ignore them?"
Rarity gave a familiar, overly dramatic gasp. "Sweetie Belle! If there were no rules at all, the entire fashion world would be complete anarchy! Up would be down, white would be black, red would be mixed with black, which would actually be white, and the next thing you know every pony is wearing dresses made of neon conflicting colors and awful gradients and fake alicorn wings!"
"...what?"
"The point is these rules exist for a reason. More often than not, breaking them will result in an absolutely garish outcome. And I wouldn't be a very good designer if I was breaking rules constantly, now would I?"
"What about those designers that say they're experimental and make all those weird dresses that make no sense?"
"They are to be shunned."
Rarity turned back to return to her work, but her hair nearly took off from her head when she noticed something at her pile of supplies.
"Sweet Celestia!" she cried, "I'm out of thread! How?!"
She looked back to Sweetie Belle, breathing heavily. "Sweetie Belle, I have to make an emergency run into town to get some thread!"
Rarity sprinted out the door, calling out to Sweetie Belle as she ran down the stairs. "I'll be back in a moment don't touch anything especially the dresses be back soon!"
Sweetie Belle heard the front door to the boutique slam shut. The only thing keeping her company now was Opal, currently napping one on of the naked mannequins.
"Well," she said to Opal, "guess it's just you and me now."
The cat opened her eyes long enough to look at Sweetie Belle, hiss at her, then go right back to sleep.
Sweetie Belle looked around Rarity's workshop. Most of the dresses were in various stages of completion, but none of them ready.
Her thoughts turned back to what Rarity had said about fashion rules. She knew her sister was getting kind of famous for her dresses, but why?
She decided to go downstairs and inspect some of the dresses. Rarity said she couldn't touch them, but what was the harm at just looking at them really close?
Walking down the stairs, she entered the shop section of Rarity's boutique. Rarity had at least remembered to put the 'CLOSED' sign on the front door, so there was little chance of her being caught with a customer. One of the dresses in the front window caught her eye, a long striped dress with a wide-brimmed hat.
She hopped up on the display, leaning inward. She'd seen some of her sister's sketches before, but it always seemed like she had more-or-less always had the final product in her head before she put it to paper. Then there were Rarity's earliest dresses which she refused to talk about entirely, simply calling them "abominations" and dropping the subject. Where did Rarity get her ideas?
There was nothing odd about the dress, any case. At least, that's what she thought. It wasn't exactly like she was a fashion judge.
But even though the dress was of Rarity's standard work, something was off about the mannequin. The dress left most of the front legs exposed, and she noticed a hinge on the left leg. That was odd, if only because she'd never seen anything like that on any of the other mannequins.
Rarity had told her not to touch anything. Especially the dresses.
She reached out towards the hinged limb. Like her sister said, you have to ignore a rule or two sometimes.
To her surprise, the limb moved. It budged only a little, and that's when she realized the hinge only really allowed movement in one direction. Instead, she pulled, and the leg came towards her. A very loud click came from the leg, and suddenly she heard a large, scraping sound behind her.
She jumped up, and her mouth went wide when she saw the big table with the flower design on the top slide aside, revealing a staircase going downward.
Rarity had a basement?
Before she could move towards the mysterious stairs, she saw Opal walking down the stairs. The cat caught sight of the stairs, and then looked to Sweetie Belle with a smug grin. Sweetie Belle got the message clear enough: "you're in so much trouble."
"Rarity didn't say anything about opening passages to mysterious dark basements!" Sweetie Belle shot back. But as soon as she said, she realized maybe that was more an unspoken rule.
Oh well, she thought. Might as well go all the way.
She walked over, peering down the darkness. It was a spiral staircase, she couldn't make out anything from where she was at; she'd have to go in. She hesitantly placed down one hoof on the fair step, wincing for the inevitable booby trap. When the whoosh of darts coming out of the walls didn't sound, she took a second step, then a third, and slowly began to trot down the staircase.
There was no light, and it grew darker and darker until she felt herself reach the final step. The stairs seemed to open into a room of some kind, though it was too dark to see anything.
Sweetie Belle walked along the walls, searching for a light switch. While she did, she kept stepping over stuff she couldn't identify in the dark, but a lot of it felt like...sewing supplies? She even swore she kicked an empty spray can out of the way until she finally hit a switch on the far side of the room.
Light filled the room from above, and what Sweetie Belle saw shocked her.
It was chaos. Not "organized chaos" that could be found in her sister's workshop, but actual chaos. Mannequins were outfitted with dresses that defied any kind of sense. One that mixed every color of the rainbow in a checkboard pattern, one made entirely out of flowers, one made out of what looked like folded paper and crudely spray-painted...they all looked like the inventions of an insane person.
The walls were spray-painted, too. Grafitti lined the walls, giving the room a very grungy tone. Crude chalk diagrams of dresses were scribbled on random portions of it, along with dressmaking supplies being scattered haphazardly throughout the room.
She walked up to one of the stranger dresses. She'd never seen anything like it; starting from the legs, it seems normal enough, dark blue fabric, until you realized it came with a huge coat draped over the back with giant golden buttons. It had a purple shirt, for some reason, and most oddly a giant chain hanging off one shoulder. And then there was the hat hanging off one side of the head, its front studded with strange golden symbols she didn't recognize.
It was plain bizarre. Sweetie didn't know a lot about fashion, but she was pretty sure this thing broke every rule in the book.
As she reached out to touch the chain, she heard a familiar voice behind her.
"I should have known this day would come."
Sweetie Belle spun around to see her sister standing at the staircase, a new batch of sewing supplies levitating above her.
"Rarity!" Sweetie Belle squeaked, "Uh!"
Rarity rolled her eyes, walking over to the corner and flipping another switch Sweetie Belle hadn't seen. She heard the table above them slowly grind back into place.
"There," Rarity mumbled. "That should give us some privacy."
"What is this place?!" Sweetie Belle demanded.
She put down her supplies with a sigh. "You've found the Anarchy Room."
"Anarchy Room?"
"Yes. It's been here since the boutique has."
"What is it?"
Rarity walked over to the dress made out of paper. She ripped off the leggings of it, inspecting the crude drawings on the surface. "My unfiltered id, I suppose."
"Huh?"
With another sigh, Rarity turned to her sister. "Remember everything I said about fashion rules, and how important it is to follow them?"
"Yeah?"
"That doesn't apply here. Whatever happens in here, doesn't happen. I allow myself to break every rule I know in this room, and not hate myself later. It lets me experiment in every direction."
"So all those fashion rules...?"
"In here? Don't exist. Never will."
"So...a dress made out of denim?"
"Allowed."
"What about a hat made out of tin cans painted tye-dye?"
"Yep."
"Bamboo boots?"
"I called them 'bamboots'. The point is, you can commit any fashion sin in the Anarchy Room. Here, let me show you."
She walked over to one of the naked mannequins, picking up long sheets of fabrics and scissors along the way. The quickly went to work, madly cutting out pieces of fabric and tying together other parts until she finally stood aside to show her work.
It was a dress, sort of, only random holes had been cut out all over. There was no sense to where the holes had been cut out, and some even had odd strips of fabric connecting each hole.
"See?" Rarity said in an almost-proud tone. "If I created this in my actual workroom, I would have to burn down the boutique. But here? It's a misfit among many!"
Sweetie Belle grabbed a paint bucket with her magic. Though it was heavy, she managed to lift it over the head of one of the other mannequins and drop an enter gallon's worth of pink paint on one of the mannequin's heads. "Like that?"
Rarity beamed. "You get the idea! But try to keep the mannequins more or less intact in here. They're not exactly cheap."
Sweetie Belle and Rarity spent the rest of the afternoon playing around in the Anarchy Room, each trying to outdo the other with terrible designs. Rarity's experience gave her the edge, but Sweetie Belle's total ignorance of fashion made her a tough opponent. Eventually, they agreed on a draw when they both came up with the same terrible design: a dress made entirely out of tape.
After they were done, Sweetie Belle flicked the switch that opened up the passage to the shop, and they both ascended the stairs.
When they re-entered the boutique, Rarity quickly ran over to the mannequin with the switch and pulled its leg, sealing the table back into place. She looked over to her sister. "Oh, I forgot to mention. There is one rule in the Anarchy Room."
"What's that?"
Rarity's face suddenly turned grim. "You do not talk about the Anarchy Room."
"Sounds fair," Sweetie Belle replied.
"Oh, and Opalescence is not allowed in the Anarchy Room."
"Why?"
Rarity looked over to Opal napping on a table, her eyes narrowing. "She knows what she did."
Her face brightened. "So, what did you think of the monstrosities in there?"
"They were awful."
Rarity chuckled. "That's the idea. All the horrible ideas have to go somewhere. Have to filter them out, and keep the perfection. Now come on, I bet you're hungry. You need a perfect dinner."
"Can I cook?"
"There isn't an Anarchy Kitchen, Sweetie Belle."
They both laughed, walking up the stairs to the second floor of the boutique.
