I rented a place, and the landlord was a socially anxious shut-in who spent all day at home collecting rent, playing video games, and filming short videos.
Then one day, I borrowed his bathroom to shower and accidentally opened his wardrobe...
Inside were dozens of neatly folded sets of women’s underwear.
He didn’t run. Neither did I.
Because I immediately spotted that misty blue camisole, the style that had been sitting in my favorites for ages, one I’d never been able to bring myself to buy.
“You... have pretty good taste,” I said, as if possessed.
Only later did I learn that he had a fetish, but he wasn’t some kind of pervert. His mother had died young, and the only thing he could remember about her was the scent of her clothes. So he began photographing the rooms of women who had moved out, preserving one last picture of the clothes they’d left behind.
And I, an unemployed fashion designer, needed a partner who understood the female body better than anyone.
We went from awkward roommates to business partners. He used a straight man’s sense of style to conduct user research, and I used my expertise to turn the things “he thought looked good” into actual designs.
When our first hit product launched, he said, “After my mom died, I never thought about the future. Now it feels like I have one.”
Three months later, we took our brand, Wardrobe, to the Shanghai Lingerie Exhibition.
Someone later asked me how I’d fallen for him.
I remembered that night when he pulled out a notebook recording what I’d worn each day since moving in.
On the last page, it said: Day 91. She looks good in everything.
It turns out the deepest fetish is falling in love with the person.
