The Joys of January!

Milan has a great way to deal with the depression of January. You know, that feeling you have when you realize you have almost a full year to go before Christmas, a heck of a long way to go before your next holiday (usually Easter), that you spent way too much during Christmas break, and that the weather just sucks. Just. Sucks. Oh, and you realize how little you studied over the break, and how much work you have to do now. Just me? Right.

So now that I've brought you down, let's bring you back up!

January starts with one of the most beautiful words in existence. SALES. That's right, forget lining up for Boxing Day sales while you're still trying to digest your Christmas dinner. Give it a couple of weeks, let your credit card cool off, and then hit up the sales that start the first weekend of January, and usually last until the end of February. This happens twice a year, so don't worry, if you can't get your act together to come and visit me in the next few weeks, you can always wait for the July sales!

Then, Pitti Uomo starts in Firenze. I did a bad thing, and skipped school one day to go. In my defence, I had already bought the train ticket and found out after that the class was being rescheduled! A little history... Pitti Immagine puts on international fashion trade shows and events. Pitti Uomo in January is a huge trade show where designers show their Fall/Winter 2013/2014 collections - designers who don't show at the various fashion weeks. I had no idea what to expect when I arrived, and my first (and second, and third, and fourth...) reaction was THIS IS HUGE. I got lost countless times. More so when I tried to find specific booths. I call them booths, but that's not the right word. They're pop-up shops. Hundreds, and hundreds of pop-up shops. They were all really well done, but two in particular stood out. The first was the Happiness brand. We're doing a school project for them so I was really excited to see what they had going on. They had built this hotel idea, with each room showcasing the different products. Sunglasses in one room, clothing in the "laundry room", shoes in another, prints in another. The other that blew my mind was Ballantyne. They had created a kind of magical forest, and in addition to deep, rich forest-y colours which I love already, they had this guy walking around the room with a bag full of noisemakers subtly making these sounds of the forest, from birds chirping, to a babbling creek. I literally wanted to throw the cashmere sweaters on the floor, curl up in them, and spend 3 hours in the forest.

A few days later, White Milano started. I have to admit that with Pitti so fresh in my mind, White was really a letdown. It's much smaller in size, and more of a booth set up than a pop-up store set up. The positive side of White was that the booths were less busy which gave me a chance to talk to the reps and get some information and actually meet some people. That didn't happen at Pitti - who wants to talk to a student when you have a line up of buyers waiting?

Last, but most certainly not least, Milano Men's Fashion Week started the same weekend as White. It was a mix of disappointment and awesomeness for me. The disappointment came from being cut from being a dresser for the Vivenne Westwood show, because they had 10 more people than they needed. So after leading all of us backstage and making us stand around and ogle male models wait for almost an hour, we had to go home. But the awesome part came when one of the other dressers got invited to the after party, and invited me as her plus one! Sadly for me, Vivienne spent the evening behind the VIP ropes where I certainly wasn't allowed, otherwise I would've tried to sit next to her and talk to her all night long. She fascinates me!

So, all this said, it's January 16th right now and I'd say it's been a pretty great first half of the month. I've taken part in all of these industry events, AND I even scored myself an awesome deal on a few new things that I "had" to buy.

Has this post convinced any of you to come and visit me yet? ;)