Portabello Market

Yesterday we went to the Victoria and Albert museum for the day, I could spend WEEKS in that place, and no doubt I will since it is only 3 blocks from my dorm. In the whole day we only explored a few exhibits on the first floor. We saw the early asian and early islamic exhibits, containing sculptures, paintings, textiles, artifacts, tiles and architecture. We also explored another sculpture gallery and lastly the Fashion exhibit... oh that fashion exhibit was wonderful and terrible in one glorious stroke. I loved it and it hurt me at the same time. It was set up in rings, the outter most ring was historical clothing, from the late 1700's to present designer collections. The designs were grouped by loose ideas such as corsetry, shoes, ready to wear, active wear, mens suits.. etc. One wall had a timeline laid out in heels - beautiful. There were also a few wedding gowns from different periods scattered in the outter ring. The inner ring of the fashion exhibit were works by fashion students from the Royal College of Art - this is when the exhibit took my breath away in an almost painfully abrupt way. I was so stunned at the innovation, the skills and the architectural shapes... they just blew me away. They looked like professional works from designers who have worked the business for decades: the technical skills and resources were more than I could ever imagine having. We read on one of the museum signs that these student have access to knitting machines, laser cutters, textile weaving machines and textile printers and so much more. I couldn't help but think at first that I must have chosen the wrong school! I do love Marist college but I can't even imagine having the resources that these students did to create these master pieces... To think that I could design a print to perfectly match my designs and just get it printed; or design an outfit that was intricately pieced together in hundreds of pieces, just tap all that into the laser cutter and let it do the work; or I could design my own special knitt and tap the calculations into the machine and go home and sleep while it finishes!!!

This exhibit led us to a discussion about our futures as designers and jobs after graduation... we generally all came to the same conclusion: that when we finish at marist we will not get our dream jobs, we will get jobs as somebodies bitch undersome other designer, but it is all for the correct path. We will work under other ppl until our time comes, that is the way it works. We will get jobs, work until we decide that we are either A. ready for graduate program B. ready for our own line C. ready for our own label or store. Realistically we know we won't getour dream jobs right after graduation but I for one know that I am on the right path, and I like where I am going... Perhaps The Royal College of Art will be on my graduate school list... who knows?

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Today we went to Portabello Market.

The website says that this market is about 2 miles long, I didn't even make it all the way down... I got stuck in the antique section with the books and jewelry. I spent probably half of my time shifting through piles of ancient books, jewelry and pieces of lace and fabric. I even found some antique sari trims! They were beautiful, I wish I could have purchased the whole pile. This market covered probably everything I can think of that I would ever want to spend money on... Besides the normal shops and boutiques of clothes, shoes and accessories there were stalls on the sidewalks. I even saw hookas on sale for 19.95 pounds! haha it was random but it just happened to be something I wasn't used to seeing on sale in public. the markets also included a food section where both raw ingredients and prepared foods were sold

The market was set up in general sections. The first section we came into at the top of Portabello street was the antique section. Everything from silverware, to cameo necklaces to flasks, china, and art was on display here, and in a variety of price ranges. I stayed for quite some time looking at books here... i found a beautiful copy of Arabian Nights/A Thousand and One Nights - unfortunately it would've cost me all of the money I brought with me (about 45 pounds). There was also a really nice copy of pride and prejudice and a few other recognisable titles that were sadly out of my price range.

Through out the entire market jewelry was spread, antique and new mixed together. I had a hard time keeping my head, the whole thing was quite overwhelming but I ended up buying only one necklace. It is a type of pendant carved of jade, the man told me it was an asian dragon symbol for good luck. I tried to leave it but i kept coming back to it so I bought it for 8 pounds.

I also bought: 1) one of those pretty paper star shaped lamp covers. 2) two different pieces of antique lace, one large pattern in a creamy yellow and one small trim in pure white. 3) two sections of fabric, one yellowy mustard like color with small repeating pattern, the other deep purple with a paisley like pattern. I also bought a crepe for lunch! :) I spent about 40 pounds over all... I honestly could have spent millions in this market and not been satisfied, apparently there were even more good things further down that I didn't even get to. Julissa and Christina, unhindered by antique books, made it a good deal further down the street than I did and told me about other places that I will definately visit when my parents come.

That is about it for today...