I originally thought of doing one post before even reaching NY, however after seeing and exploring so much, I decided to go ahead with a breakdown of posts. This is one is dedicated to Midtown Manhattan (roughly).

This post in general will end up being the longest of my New York series, due to our hotel being in Midtown Manhattan, therefore meant we spent most of our days in its comfort. 

We were staying at Hotel Wolcott, which was situated in the ease of Times Square being a 5 minute walk away, streets behind the Empire State building and about a minute from the nearest subway station (making it super easy on our days away from Midtown).



There's nothing that screams "TOURISTS!" than the streets that surrounded us, gift shops were not hard to spot and Manhattan Mall called for easy shopping sprees or just a quick look around the, not hard to miss, Macy's - hello free WiFi. 

Times Square, is exactly how you imagine it... the biggest throw up of advertising around (sorry Piccadilly Circus, not quite). It's so much to take in, it fascinates you just how much is going around you, the advertising, to the street performers and shops. The sense of a good overwhelming feeling is hard to come by, but Times Square will not fail to deliver. On our first day we walked down during the day and took in the concrete jungles that surrounded us and the streets and avenues that went on for miles. We soon learnt to appreciate every Starbucks, about meters from each other, due to the quick breakfasts, but WiFi to help navigate around, as well as posting the aesthetics of NY to the gram - the priority still exists, wherever you are in the world in this day and age.

We took the standard Times Square snaps, but they do not do it justice at all. From TV and Cinema screens seeing it all in reality is so surreal, the smallest details of a yellow cab even, it all felt like a dream. Whilst in the process of coming to terms and comprehending the fact we were in New York, we headed to Forever 21 to "look around" (promise that was our initial intention) and Sephora ( bye bye spending money). It was one of the coldest days, but that did not put a hold on searching for a little pizza place to sum up our day. I promise you, these pizza's are to die for! - Little Italy was our favourites.

I say "sum up our day", but we ventured into Brooklyn that evening for a reason that I will go into more detail with in an upcoming post. 

So, New York, means a lot of walking and I did not let that come in the way of finding a 'Carlo's Bakery'. Growing up, me and my dad would watch the 'Cake Boss' series all the time and I just had to try a cannolli. Not far from Times Square, is were one is situated and it was so worth it, I'm still craving another one. We spoke to a lady in there who said the queue for the bakery during holidays can be so long and I'm definitely not surprised as to why.

I do feel like a lot of New York feels like you're living out movies and television shows in person, due to its vast use and exposure in the media. One of my favourite moments was our visit to Grand Central, hitting me with that throwback to the first episode of Gossip Girl. Despite being a subway station, in comparison to the tubes here in my hometown London, it was similar but also a different vibe all together. So some tube stations do have a few restaurants here and there, but a balcony with open aired cuisines vary far from your little sandwich shop serving some PG Tips.

Altering our mindsets to being fashion students, on our walk to our favourite pizza place (easiest way to keep yourself fed in New York, you have our word), we stumbled across parts of the Fashion Walk of Fame, coming across Calvin Klein's, who I absolutely adore, as well as Ralph Lauren's who I worked for. This walk of fame runs from Chelsea/ The Garment District, speaking of which...





We were all allocated a tour of The Garment District, so two days into the big city, we met bloggers, flower makers and a jewellery brand owner. This tour was an insight into the concrete jungles of Chelsea and opened our eyes to what goes on within the industry here in the streets of the district. We were fuelled with inspo from bloggers with their words of encouragement to keep going with our blogs and seeing it as a platform to just let our thoughts out. We also had our eyes opened to the little details of the bigger picture through the handcrafted flower - family run - company, which have had the opportunity to work with the likes of Victoria's Secret. I also cannot miss out running around the famous fabric store MOOD which has made appearances on Project Runway and for all my Gossip Girl lovers, it should ring a bell.



Midtown Manhattan was our comfort, despite how busy it can be, thats what I like being a city girl.

It's true when they say that the city never sleeps...

I'll be posting some more on the Big Apple in the coming weeks, keep an eye out.

Growing up in London my entire life consisted of many days to Central London, however my trip to London with my university, from Nottingham, was a lot more goal focused as it was a research trip.


Our project briefs consisted of a varied amount of trends that were allocated per group. We had to keep our eyes open for the trend "Stretched Shoulders". Immediately after hearing our trend, I automatically thought of it being more a Spring/Summer trend. However from knits to evening dresses we came across a variety, still along the lines of a limited collection, but the trend itself is seen to be trans-seasonal through the change in materials and textures used. 

Without a doubt, stores like Selfridges and Liberty were at the top of our list to visit. Upon entering it was not only our trend we were looking out for, but anything that took our interest. It is definitely becoming colder and that means winter is very much on its way/here, with this comes the visual aesthetics shops like Selfridges roll out for the season, capturing aspects of Christmas ( and nothing like giant glittery baubles hold the festive spirit).




We also thought it would be a a great idea to capture where all things VOGUE, takes place here in London. Therefore it was only right to take a little turn towards Hanover Square, where the 'Vogue House' lies. Also part of this is a little magazine archive store by Condé Nast (the publishing company that own Vogue). It was amazing to see the variety of magazine covers from years previous to now, it really helped to see the evolution of magazines and fashion itself, within the media.