Knock Knock...

My second visitor .... was Mum (or should I say 'Mom'). Who arrived on Wednesday afternoon and my internship manager was kind enough to let me out early to go meet and greet her! Double treat! 

Mum had already settled herself at the nearby Zagat rated restaurant which is literally a stones throw (just a block) from my new home on the UWS! Unfortunately I still had class during the week but thankfully my large NYFW project had been completed. We ate at the very nice sushi restaurant called Fusha on the first night ... which has a mahjong-tiled bathroom.  

Dad flew out on Friday, which was SO lovely - very short trip for him! Highlights of the trip also included;

* a fun evening at the city winery listening to live country-type music and enjoying a charcuterie board and also what can only be described as 'BP oil slick' squid linguine

* Breakfast at The Marc

* Breakfast at The Mercer

* Afternoon Tea at Bergorf Goodman

* The Frick Museum 

* watched Driving Miss Daisy on Broadway with one of the characters being the voice of CNN and also Darthvader! haha - to be fair the play was a little slow moving and had a lot of American references but I enjoyed it! 

* supper at Maloney & Porcini 

* a spoiling weekend of shopping

* Mum and I indulged in manicures

* We all walked through central park

It was such a lovely pre-birthday weekend, full of lovely activities - THANK YOU <3

NYFW

Then comes New York Fashion Week!!

So I did not sleep to eat or have a moment to think twice this week as I had SO much work on... I had to produce a report for PR which highlighted 3 shows for each day of fashion week. Identify 3 key points that womens wear daily and 3 key points that Style.com made AND come up with my own professional opinion. I also had to choose my 3 favourite shows of the week and say what made them 'newsworthy'. As well as writing a press release for one of these. I also had to decode 3-5 key trends for AW11  and  had to make a trend video which can be seen on youtube. (link should be attached to this post)

My favourite show of the week has to have been MONCLER... who showed the collection through a flashmob dance set up in Grand Central Station (42nd street!) how crazy....

Descisions, descisions...

So after Tom's visit I had some tough choices ahead... the opportunity to work for Gucci supporting their special events team ( considering this year its their 90th birthday!) and then Tory Burch (a brand I have interned for before) had also offered me a position to intern for the marketing team . 

I weighed up my pros/cons into this list:

Gucci
* HUGE fashion house name to have on CV and be assosiated with

* Clear expectations laid out in the interview

* Really lovely girls who interviewed me (who asked me to quote lines from the MTV show Skins - the accent works charm in interviews!)

* Not very much responsibility in the role, managing samples etc and the fashion closest

* Cool HQ location; 53rd & 5th - wrong side of town from where I live

Tory Burch

* worked for them before in Sales (now opportunity is in marketing)

* very exciting brand to work for, as they are growing at a staggering rate!

* just launched 1st FSS (free standing store) in london  

* HR girl very disorganized

* convenient location (on my subway line, 20 min commute to 11W (5th Ave) & 19th street)

* more role responsibility & broader scope of support needed (national events, wholesale, international marketing calenders etc & special projects)

* Girl who interviewed me was nice but not overly engaging. 

I was torn for almost a week before letting them know I would be picking Tory Burch! The deciding factor was that TB is an American luxury brand who gave me a shot when I was first entering the fashion world as an 18 year old GAP year student, I definitely feel a loyalty to the brand. TB is also growing so rapidly they may be a career opportunity at the end of it - and last but certainly not least... my PR professor gave me some great advice to work for an American company whilst in America.

I really enjoy marketing... and would definitely consider taking my career down this path - perhaps moreso than merchandising. 

My first visitor: Tom

My friend Tom came to visit at the end of January/beginning of Feb for a week! This was his first time to New York and also the USA. The highlights of his trip included; 

• strolling through Central Park
• supper at Gordon Ramsay's Maze restaurant at the London hotel (New York Restaurant week was on). 
• bringing a lifetime supply of British chocolate with him!

This week was heavy on the snow front. 

Lets Go Knicks!

So... Since being in New York I have been to Madison Square Garden (MSG) to support my newest team - THE KNICKS!! They played against the LA Lakers who I am sad to say that they championed on that evening although we gave them a good fight. I kitted myself out from head to toe in Knicks merchandise, with a flat cap & No. 8's jersey. Although sadly No. 8 was supposed to be guarding Kobe Bryant (Lakers star player) yet that sneakily scorer left Danilo Galinari (No. 8) in tatters and off the team! LESSON LEARNT: If I had waited a week my jersey would have almost been free!!!!!! PATIENCE! 

PARSONS, THE NEW SCHOOL FOR DESIGN

After a week of settling in, getting an apartment (but sadly no furniture yet, so we were all sleeping on the floor of a gutted space - not even any curtains to be seen) I had orientation day at Parsons! Their campus locations are 40th & &7th (very near Times Square, my primary campus)  and also 12th/13th near 5th Ave! 


Really set in the centre (/west) of manhattan it is a very buzz-y area. So I had my initial international students orientation and signed up for my classes which I choose to do Public Relations and an internship over Global Trend Spotting (which sounded fun, such a shame as if you are not taking the class you aren't allowed to sit in). The classes are fairly small here... maybe about 15-20 people in each - most of whom have done a graduate degree already so are around 24-25 years old.  It is very serious and you get points for class participation, its all about forming your own opinion here which is crazy since back home at Westminster Uni there is a real focus on Harvard referencing and keeping your work and writing strictly in the 3rd person and citing all your sources. Another strange concept is that they give you homework assignments after each class - and these assignments are not small! I probably spend 60% of my week at university or doing uni work, 30% at my internship and the final 10% sleeping!!  


I find myself very motivated here and all of the professors are very engaging and inspiring, the 3 hour lectures seem to fly by and even more importantly I think the knowledge they are sharing is sinking in!  The professors have all come from industry and have great contacts in the fashion field that they emphasize sharing which is great... 


Parsons Alumni that also creates a buzz around the school include, Alexander Wang, Anna Sui, Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Proenza Schouler, Donna Karen, just to name a few! 

Finding a new home...

Some shots of the new humble abode! 
So the game plan was that we gave ourselves a week to set ourselves up - with an apartment, "cellphones", bank accounts and school enrollment. 
Our first few days we split into two twos, arranged apartment viewings and each pair saw about 6 apartments! Exhausting day as to each estate agent = 'broker' we had to explain our situation (i.e. students, budget, location). Most of the flats we saw were walk-up buildings i.e. no elevator and accommodation would be on the 5th floor - so, 10 flights of stairs! knackering!  We eventually found this one apartment, which by complete chance the other pair had also been shown it by a different broker. We had all fallen in love with a duplex with two bathrooms, two balconies and 3 bedrooms with an open kitchen into a convertible living room/bedroom! Wooden floors, white walls, Apartment 3 which was in a discreet walk up building (2 flights of stairs, which is much more manageable than some of the ones we had seen. lest we not forget that each of us girls had 6 months of clothes packed, about 50-60kgs for each of us 'fashion' degree students to lug around... absolute mare). Every apartment we saw was unfurnished which seemed to be pretty standard for short term lets. so for the first 3 days we roughed it on the floor! We purchased "comforters" and loo roll... the essentials. You can see in the picture below here the radiator which releases a hissing noise - honestly sounds like we are getting gassed everytime it comes on! Thankfully gas is included in our bills so this wintery weather is more bearable!



The apartment is located between The Hummus Place and Freddie's Pizza joint... hmm you can just imagine the dilemma we have when it comes to dinner decision time! 

Welcome to the city that never sleeps...

Hello Big Apple So I arrived to a bitterly cold evening in New York. A city that had been recently frosted with fresh snow! We (3 friends and myself) landed quite late at 10pm-ish and headed to settle in at Sohotel... a great (recommendable) little boutique hotel. It is based in the heart of the bustling and cool scene that is 'downtown' where the streets are named rather than numbered, the location of the hotel is deceiving in its name as it is closer to Chinatown than Soho but nevertheless charming and within 5 mins walking distance to all the shops Broadway (and actual SOHO area which is only a small area of about 6 blocks)!  Very close to our hotel there was a pop-up park which was very odd! Looked like a shop front from the outside and on the inside although there was fake grass and a barbeque going... (remember its the middle of winter outside) there were still white walls! As you can see from the middle picture... quite a few people were enjoying this concept and sat in the manufactured environment. Bizarre!