On Tuesday, January 28th, my class and I visited Urban Zen located at 705 Greenwich St. New York, NY 10014. Urban Zen is a philosophy of living by Donna Karen. I had gotten a chance to speak with the head designer and head of production while visiting their store. Both of these ladies shared their experiences while working for this company as well as their roles. We had the lovely opportunity to have a personal tour with one of the employees and she spoke of Donna Karen’s inspiration and influence regarding the company. It was truly an inspirational visit and I loved learning about Donna Karen’s adventures and to hear about the discoveries she made while away in Haiti. She is so dedicated to improving the lives of children through education and meditation. She offered a new perspective on life to those in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. It was a wonderful experience learning about her humanitarian side as well as how she incorporates that into her company.

On Tuesday, January 22, 2019, my class and I visited the Javitis Center at 655 W 34th St. and 12th Ave. There, we visited Texworld, one of the largest global fabric sourcing trade shows in the world. One of the booths that fascinated me most was a company called “Scoop”. They are based in Portugal. They focus on ethical and sustainable ways of producing and participate in, “act local, think global”.

After, I visited a booth, “Fab Scrap”. They too are an ethical fabric company that specializes in collecting fabric scraps and selling small quantities of various fabrics for decent prices. They also go around to different companies and place bags specifically for the collection of fabric scraps. Both of these companies were very interesting to talk to.

In my opinion, I thought Texworld was smaller in comparison to Premier Vision, in Paris. There was not a lot to see at Texworld and some of the booths did not even try and converse with you. I saw a couple where the sellers were on their phones not paying attention to the buyers. A booth even had both sellers with headphones in. It was an interesting experience, but quite small and a little boring.

Welcome to my blog, where I’ll be discussing all the events I visit.

Around the Block

On Tuesday, January 15, 2019, my class and I toured around New York City and visited stores beneficial to my Fashion degree. First, we stopped into Elegant Fabrics, located on 242 W 36th St. There, we got to touch and feel all different types of fabrics. The workers there were very nice and accommodating to all of us. From there we stopped at M&J Trimming, located at 1008 6th Ave, in-between 37th and 38th. This store was absolutely beautiful and had every notion and accessories every fashion designer would need. They had a room dedicated solely to buttons and it was a lot of fun exploring their copious amounts of drawers. After, we browsed Around the World, located on 148 W 37th St. This bookstore was filled with all sorts of magazines, fashion books, prismacolor markers, etc. They had so many magazines to choose from that some students went back to explore more. Lastly, on our tour we stopped into Mood Fabrics, located at 225 W 37th St, Floor 3. I had an amazing time exploring this store and got to experience what designers from Project Runway felt when entering this store. It had three levels filled with more fabric than ever. There were sections for trimmings and notions and then the rest of the store had bolts of fabric pretty much in every space available. I enjoyed learning where those stores were located seeing as they will be very beneficial to me. My favorite store of those would have to be M&J Trimmings. I was not a huge fan of Elegant Fabrics, but I think thats only because I did not like how the store was set up.