Haute Couture

In the southeast quadrant of Canterlot, there stood a warehouse with exposed brick interior walls and a ceiling made of disco balls and string lights. A hundred years ago, the warehouse had been used to manufacture steel. Later in its life, it had been a vital waypoint for a complex grocery distribution chain. As the area gentrified, industry was pushed out. The warehouse was structurally unable to be converted into chic artist lofts for the ultra-rich and their children, and therefore fell into disuse.

Now, its manicured grime played host to Rarity’s latest bid for the spotlight.

808s hammered from rented subwoofers. Spotlights swung, searching for something shiny. Rarity’s six hundred closest work friends jockeyed for standing room around a massive runway. At the center of it all—by design, of course—was Rarity. Every few minutes she arrived on the catwalk in a new bombshell creation, ranging from the gorpy to the serene to the scandalous.

It was going great—but she knew it could be better. She got polite standing ovations, but only because the show itself was standing room only. She wasn’t killing it the way she wanted to.

Luckily, she had a plan.

At the party’s apex, Rarity signaled all the models back to the catwalk. Each pony wore the unmistakably derivative hits of Seasonal Fashion. The lights dimmed. The crowd watched with bated breath as Rarity levitated two oversized magnets on either side of her. She paused for a moment to let the suspense linger in the air. Then she took off down the runway at a gallop.

The magnets had an immediate effect. The tiny time-delay system in each outfit glowed red through the fabric. One by one, the outfits burst into brilliant flames of every color of the rainbow. The crowd ooh’d and aah’d, but their awe turned to full-blown adulation when they realized that underneath the immolating Seasonal Fashion was Rarity’s newest line of actual seasonal fashion.

As Rarity bathed in the applause and the sparks still raining down on the stage, she noted a few stragglers slipping out of the warehouse. Perfect, she thought. Message received.