Kat's Adventures: New York City Tour of Garment Industry (Day 2)

The beginning of another day in the big city of New York: eager and ready for exploration, adventure, and fulfillment. I didn’t realize how much of a huge opportunity I had until I woke up that morning. We had so much free time to fill after our excursion to the MET that I realized I could go anywhere I wanted in NYC!!! I might be getting ahead of myself here so I’m just goanna go ahead and talk about what me and my roomies were doing bright and early in the morning.

We had some time in between breakfast and the meet up time to go look around the area of our hotel to see what there. First of all, our hotel was right in the middle of the Garment District where every street had at least 3 different and unique fabric shops to explore. Let me tell ya, there were a lot around. One place we visited was one of the many whole sale fabric shops that sold mostly fine laces, embroidered, beaded, and foiled embossed fabrics. We walked in throughout the room to see that every wall, shelf, and floor was just consumed with fabrics. They were so pretty! Although, I was surprised to see some of the fabrics that the shop was offering were very much recognizable from when I used to work at Joann Fabrics. I don’t think I’ve seen so many fabrics in a single place before. It was really hard not to spend my money on only day 2 of the trip. Which truthfully I did anyway, but not at this shop.

At around 10am we as a group of students went off to our viewing of the MET museum. On the way there we made a few stops, such as the Shakespeare Garden in Central Park and some sort of oriental inspired architectural viewing spot where we saw local art students drawing on their art pads and an old man playing wonderful music on his unique instrument. I managed to catch a bit of his song.

We then made it to the MET so see “China: Through the Looking Glass” exhibit. Oh. My. GOD. Words cannot express how AMAZING this was to see in person. There were multiple floors dedicated to incredible displays of fantastic couture and costuming pieces inspired by Ancient China and its culture.

As you walked to see each garment displayed, you were able to see the very inspiration they used to create the piece. These designers used the ancient robes as inspiration for their modern creations. They brilliantly saw every detail in the robes: the prints, the embroidery, the textures, the message, the attention of the Chinese imagery, all were used to create even more wonderful and incredible pieces that they could call their own. Every piece was unique and quite painstakingly handmade for very little use. I believe some of the pieces were used in movies worn by famous Asian actresses. Most pieces were results of fine couture craftsmanship by many great legends such as Dior, St. Lauran, McQueen, Valentino, Channel, and many others were featured. (Full critique coming soon). I encorage you to explore my photo gallery located on the bottom page of this post for more photos of the exhibit.

I took at least 800 photos of the exhibit making sure I captured every garment on display. We had maybe an hour or two to really take in the beauty of the garments. At about 1:30pm it was our free time! Everyone had at least 5 or 6 hours to do whatever we wanted in New York. Again, an incredible opportunity thrown at me to do WHATEVER I wanted in the city. After having a quick lunch break having a gyro platter (which was $14 by the way, uhg) me and my group were off to East Village which most well-known for its large artisan community in Manhattan. THIS ALSO INCLUDES a nifty little shop called “Obscura” which has its own television serious on TLC called “Oddities” (where I first heard of the shop). But on the way to this shop we stumbled across an AMAZING store that . . . I . . . just couldn’t ignore! IT BECONED TO ME!

The Trash and Vaudeville NYC sold everything I ever wanted in my closet such as platform shoes, black stylish trench coats, fishnet tops and bottoms, stripped, plaid, and skull printed apparel, and skinny jeans with zippers, rips, holes, patches, safety pins, eyelets, and D-Rings. It was like walking into my dream shop, because that’s what JUST HAPPENED on that very day. I was EXTREMELY happy. I bought myself a new jacket and a pair of skinny jeans (from my favorite brand TRIP NYC) for a great price.

Now by this time in the day there was a high chance of heavy rain fall and suddenly I was rushed to find the Obscura shop. We had the address thankfully but what we didn’t know about the location was which block the shop was on. As we came across the correct street, there was only a 50/50 chance of choosing the correct direction to search for this shop. I remember taking a left toward Tompkins Square Park hoping with all my hopes and dreams that we came across the shop. The clouds were coming in, there were sprinkle of rain falling, we walked at least 10 blocks, and everyone began to wonder if we would ever find the shop. We stopped and looked at each other. I began to lose hope, and as I said out loud with a great sadness “I don’t think we will find it. . .” I turn around to face what just HAPPEN to be the Obscura shop.

I. Freaked. Out. Walking into the shop, taking a look around to look for my very eyes the bizarre items the shop had to offer was a once in a life time experience for me. I was truly happy! I ended up buying at least $65 worth of antique and strange things. For my dad I bought pages of throat diagrams and illustrations from medical journals from the 1800’s (because he is a endocrinologist), a taxidermy puffer fish for my sister, and a super neat gothic looking pin from the 1800’s (Link coming soon).

While shopping around in this neat place the rain really started to pour. And as soon as we were out of the store we were running and squirming to figure out where the closest subway transit was located. As luck would have it the closest location was 5 blocks to the left and another 6 blocks after that. It was pretty miserable to walk through the rain like we did, but after getting ourselves back to the hotel safely we were sure glad to have had a crazy amazing day like that. Seriously I don’t think I have ever had so many fun events packed into one day like that in my life. At the end of the day I was extremely grateful to have participated in a trip like this, and the week ahead was just about to get more fun and momentous.