Bright Dresses, Feather Headbands, and Fur Coats

Translation of title is--- Its London Fashion Weekend!!!

For the record, sadly no I was not invited to attend a designers runway show. I did however get to buy a ticket to fashion weekend, which is an ongoing event the few days after the official fashion week. They take one of the main tents of fashion week and host a catwalk that shows some of the highlights from the past week. You can also get tickets to enter the designer sample sale where everything is marked down a lot, up to about 80% off I'd say. Of course, I bought tickets to both!

What may not be apparent by how I actually dress is that I really do love fashion. What I don't like is spending the money or energy on being fashionable so alas I where the same basic outfits over and over again but thats life. My dream for years and years was to work for Teen Vogue. And yes, this was my dream before the hills and no I do not aspire to be LC. Anyways, I have been so excited about this catwalk/ sample sale because I have never been to a real fashion show and I figure that London will be even more fashion forward than New York, right? Plus designer clothes at 80% off isn't bad either. Maybe I'll buy some stuff so all of these chic London girls stop showing me up with their fantastically grunge wardrobes.

Sarah and I got to the tent around 3 30 and the show started at 6, so we had time to look around at the sale and do some shopping. I kind of forgot before hand that a $600 pair of shoes at 60% off is still way over my budget, so for most of the clothes I admired and walked away. I did buy one dress though! Its a bright orange, flowy dress. It was only 20 pounds. I can picture myself now walking through the sand in Cannes then throwing on my color-blocked sandals (that I do not yet own) and walking through the streets of the Riviera. Yeah, embarrassing imagery. What can I say? I like to imagine where I will wear clothes before I buy them. And I am going to Cannes in April so it's perfect!

I also bought a fashion weekend gift bag. Not because of the stuff inside of it though. It was all lame. They gave me mouthwash and hairspray and mentos and I honestly haven't even looked through it all yet so maybe there's something good hiding deep inside. I bought the gift bag because of the bag itself. Its a regular tote but it has a sketch of the building and says London Fashion Weekend and has purple straps. I really just want to go shopping with it at trader joes when I get back to GW and make everyone jealous when they read it and think I was invited to some exclusive show of London Fashion Week. That really is my sole purpose for buying the bag. Well that and the purple straps. I do love purple.

Moving on- the show itself was OK. It was really cool to actually be inside of the tent, and some of the clothes were great (especially the series on bright color-blocking, I'm kind of into bright colors at the moment if you haven't noticed), but the way it was set up was weird. I guess I was expecting like a normal catwalk type thing, but it wasn't. There were weird interruptions throughout of ads or this random woman talking. It was fun nonetheless though, so I am glad I went. And I am really excited about my new dress.

Work it Girl!

Just on the catwalk after the show :)

First Weekend of The Semester

Ok, so technically this was the 2nd weekend I've spent here, but it was the 1st weekend after classes started and after I finally settled in a bit and the 1st weekend I didn't have planned orientation activities to go to most of the time. For all real purposes, this weekend was my first weekend in London. Since I don't have work or ESA or Daily Colonial and my last classes is on Thursday, I have a long free weekend.

I'll give you some highlights of places I went. Places I recommend we must go when you come visit me (as I hope many of you will).

(1) The Rocket- its a bar near campus which sounds boring enough but they play 90s rock and hip hop with music videos and everything and they have mini pool tables. I love the 90s. Enough about that.

(2) La Perla- I finally found good food in London. And mexican none the less. Its not the most authentic mexican food in the world, but it tastes like the kind of mexican food you find in Georgia, which is good enough for me. Another bonus- its within easy walking distance of my flat.

(3) Brick Lane- this is the street/area known for its Indian and Bengali food but during the weekends (at least) they also have a market with a bunch of different ethnic food vendors and other weird odds and ends. This place also has a ton of thrift and vintage stores. Needless to say, I'll be making my way back when I have more time to shop.

The gate to Brick Lane...

And this is just the restaurant part of it. The market part was about 24X more awesome.

And I vaguely remember I would tell you the weird things I notice about this place culturally since I already had my list about the quirks of the school. So here are some:

(1) These people eat dinner so late. 10 PM dinner? no thank, unless you want my stomach growling for 3 hours beforehand.

(2) They go out early. Which doesn't make since given the above statement. In the rare event that I actually go out in DC rather than watching movies with friends or knitting or doing whatever lame thing my 85 year old soul desires, we usually leave about 12 or 1am. Here things start closing then.

(3) I have yet to meet many british students. I have met a ton of Americans here for the semester or the year and people from lots of other countries like Germany, Jamaica, Italy, Greece, Canada, etc but barely any Brits. Why? I'm not sure. I think it has something to do with the fact that affiliate (study abroad) students seem to stick together and something to do with the fact that a lot of British students live an hour or so away from campus but besides that I don't know.

(4) As I briefly mentioned, the food is not so great. Not a big surprise.

(5) Everything costs the same as it does in the US except instead of a $ you have the GBP in front. Which makes everything about 1.5 times more expensive here :(

(6) I am a slob compared to these people. Everyone is always dressed up. I need to go shopping...

And if you haven't noticed, I am a big fan of lists.

Oh, also I went on a bus tour of London which rather than making me feel like I knew the city better, actually made me realize how much I didn't know/hadn't seen. I have so much to do over the next 5 months...

That is all.

Much love,

Erica