day 1

Exhibition - His and Hers @ The museum Fashion Institute of Technology

"By exploring fashion's past we can better understand its present and future"

I really enjoyed this exhibition about different perceptions of gender through time, place and individual experience.
Here are a few interesting facts I noted down...

In the 19th Century woman's clothing was mocked as frivolous, bright and decorative, it was seen as childish compared to men's fashion.

"it is ever an amusement to contemplate the fanciful and fickle freaks of fashion"

Harper's weekly 1865

Up until the end of the 18th Century fashion was a fairly reliable indicator of a wearer's social rank. Aristocracy and gentry lost both their traditional monopoly on fashionable luxuries and their hold on political power.

Making and selling changed over the 19th Century with the rise of ready made clothing and the development of Haute Couture. Magazines and department stores made stylist clothing available to the population of consumers.
Paris was seen as the centre of Fashion for woman and London

was for the Men's.

1900-1949

Society was changing rapidly due to industrialization, urbanization and the rise of mass consumer culture. Social changes made the sporty, slim silhouette become popular, moving away from the once voluptuous and corseted waists.

day 0

After a long day shopping, literally it felt like we were on our feet for so long, we did walk everywhere though. yes, throughout the entire trip, we walked the New York streets from Midtown to Soho all the way to Chinatown. Was such a good experience seeing everything on foot though. You get to see things which you would necessarily miss. I had to make a trip to the Apple shop as I am such a gadget freak. It was amazing, took the lift

just to see it go underground! Very cool! We kept getting lost as well, the street system was such a change and such a confusion. We looked like such tourists stopping in the middle of the street every 5 minutes to look at our map. We ended the day with a rather hungry stomach, so we went to TGI's for some comfort food. It was so good. It was our first time experiencing giving an american tip, we were so unsure on how much to give, mostly because we didn't even know what any of the coins where, which might have helped! On the way home we stopped by some really cute shop which sold yoghurt's and fruits. We bought some for breakfast the next morning and walked

back to our hotel for some much needed sleep. It seemed surreal that we were on a plane that morning and in the afternoon we were actually in New York experiencing it for ourselves.

a few of my favourite things..

day 0

On our first day we experienced fifth avenue and mid town, it was like something off a film I'd seen. We went to so many shops, Bloomingdales, Victoria Secret, H&M, Tiffanys, Sacs, Gucci, LV, Zara...

I loved the kitsch kitchen in store displays in Forever 21, displaying their rings, bangles and clothes.

snapshot

day 0 - hotel

we literally thought we would have to wait ages to get to our hotel room, there was so many of us all sitting in the hotel lobby, feeling pretty restless and tired, but mostly excited to get out on the new york streets!

Somehow luck was on our side as we were the first group called to go to our hotel room. And the room was massive. I don't know what I was expecting, but it was lovely. Very spacious, our own little living space, kitchen, 2 tv's..

and the view was amazing, even just seeing building right up close was so surreal.

Day 0 - touchdown, not being sick, arrival, excitement.

Luckily I wasn't sick on the plane, that would have been just awful. I'm not making assumptions saying it would be awful, I know its awful, I have actually been sick (mid flight) on a plane. I was about 13 and travelling to Lanzarote for a family holiday. I mean I know I get travel sick, I always take tablets for buses, ferry's, coaches, cars..but never for planes. Maybe I thought my travel sickness was exempt from air flight. Well it wasn't, I was sick in the aisle, and it felt like the whole plane was looking at me with utter disgust.

So yeah..that never happened, that would have been some way to arrive in the big apple.

Because it was a long flight, we had little tvs in front of us, they looked great, you could watch movies, tv shows, check the flight plan, weather. I say it looked great because the one I had didn't do much, in fact it was stuck on that screen for the whole journey, I tried pressing it, using the remote, asking the person next to me, but alas no luck.

'did you watch the social network it was sooo good!?'

..um well no I didn't.

Forgive me, I'm not complaining, in fact I was so tired I slept the whole journey and only woke up for food. The sleep did me well, especially with my whole travel sickness malarkey.

It sounds silly, but seeing my first american highway, yellow cab, cityscape, yellow school bus, hearing an american accent and just being in New York was amazing. Sitting there on the coach travelling in to Manhattan, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

And the adventure was only just beginning...