New York Minutes: The Garment Tour

On my second day of the trip, we were lucky enough to be taken on a tour of the Fashion and Garment District of New York located on 7th Avenue. The tour was led by fashion designer and owner of 'Urban Oasis', Imani Alexander who provided us with exclusive access into the world of fashion and showed us how certain aspects of the industry worked. As fashion promotion and communication students, getting first-hand experience and a chance to socialise with people in the industry was really helpful for learning more about what is to be expected after graduating from our degrees.

Overall, I really enjoyed the tour and not only did we get to meet Imani, a New York based designer inspired by the beaches of St Tropez, but we also got the opportunity to meet the successful fashion bloggers, The WanderLust Girls and the CEO's of TrimLab, a company devoted to supplying fasteners and trims of garments to leading fashion brands.

TrimLab

So our first stop on the tour was at the Trim Lab, where we were given the chance to meet two of the managers of the company. TrimLab plays a crucial role in the fashion industry. Not only do these born and bred New Yorker's know the ins and outs of the industry from their previous experience within the garment centre, but they offer that last minute touch to the design of a garment. What garment would be complete without a fastener, zip, decorative trim or interlining! And that is exactly what they have to offer. TrimLab has several companies within their New York building that cater in zippers/zipper pulls, metal/plastic fasteners for sportswear, lingerie, and swimwear, bra cups and foam shapes, interlinings, specialty threads and elastics, notions. The company has even worked with some of the biggest designer brands around the world due to their high quality products and their passion for detail and customisation. Take a look at a few of the images of their show room below!

The Wanderlust Girls (Abigail Breslin and Emily Bache)

After speaking to the men at TrimLab for a while, we were then surprised with a visit from two of the most stylish, edgy girls online right now, The Wanderlust Girls! What made their fashion blog so much more interesting and different to any others was the fact that Abigail Breslin and Emily Bache have been best friends since the age of 11 and have built their friendship on their shared love for all things fashionable. Although the two girls went to university in different parts of America, by continuing to share their clothes via post, they were able to connect with each other in a fashionable and friendly way by blogging the shared garments to fit their own individual style. And that is how the Wanderlust Girls were born! Not only are they extremely well dressed, but just from meeting them for the first time, you can tell how passionate they are about fashion and the art of communicating their styles to a young, hip audience via the internet.

It was really great to meet these two girls as I also currently write a fashion blog and they offered advice on how to invent yourself as a blogger and what it takes to be successful at it! So be prepared to see a couple of new exciting things on my blog from now on.

photo credits: Huffington Post

http://www.thewanderlustgirls.com/

Project Runway Competition at Mood Fabrics

After meeting the Wanderlust Girls, we were then taken over to Mood Fabrics on 37th Street which is home to some of the most beautiful designer fabrics around and has famously appeared on the TV show, Project Runway.

So in true spirit of the show, Imani Alexander, divided our tour group into six smaller groups and made us take part in our own 'Project Runway Competition'. We then had to search round the fabric studio for a selection of different fabrics that we thought would suit the design of one of Imani's dresses from her resort collection. The brief we were given was a mixture of sunset Caribbean fashion meets New York downtown edge so as you can imagine, this was going to be quite tricky. However, as we put our fashion stylist thinking caps on, we came across some really great options!

As team leader of my group, once our fifteen minute search for fabrics was up, I had to debut the fabrics to Imani, who then narrowed our fabrics down to just one. Once we had our team's fabric we then had to compete against the other teams to argue why our fabric would be the best choice. This was lot of pressure for myself as the team leader, however, with the help of my group, our fabric won the competition!!

Although the competition was just for fun, as an aspiring fashion stylist myself, it gave me an idea of what it takes to be good at styling and knowing the ins and outs of your fabrics! And of course, listening to the given brief and knowing the specific customer you are styling.

Here are a few images of the fabrics that we had chose alongside our winning fabric!

This one was my second favourite! I loved how the green and blue merged together to provide a vision of under the sea and a silk texture.

The Winning Fabric!

Out of all six groups, my group managed to win the Project Runway Competition led by Imani! We chose our fabric because we believed that it was extremely versatile in terms of daywear and evening wear and could easily be worn as a summer romper or winter two piece co-ord. We even felt that the fabric could be 'grunged up' with a biker jacket and heavy boots for an edgier, chic kind of look for those with a darker sense of fashion. However, the fabric was still perfect for that exotic, holiday look because of the blend of warm complex tones.

I really loved this fabric from the beginning whether we had won or not because of these rich burnt orange and deep purple hues that were layered onto the surface of the black fabric to resemble a vision of abstract paint strokes. I would definitely wear an outfit that included this fabric but to fit my own personal style, I would probably style it with a pair of statement purple or orange earrings and a bright clutch bag to provide even more emphasis on the gorgeous colours.

By winning the competition and taking on the role of team leader, I won a bag of my choice from Mood Fabrics!

Laruicci

For our final stop on the garment tour, we visited the studio of the jewellery designer 'Laruicci' who offered us some understanding of the brand values behind her company and even allowed us to try on and purchase some of the products. This was heaven to a jewellery fanatic like myself!! Her jewellery is beautifully crafted, unique and show stopping so I was definitely not surprised to find out that Beyoncé had even worn some of Laruicci's nail rings in her video 'Run the World'.

My personal favourite was her selection of rose gold pieces that were complimented with gleaming diamante studs and detail.

So if you're a great fan of rings and chunky jewellery like I am I would recommend checking the brands website out which I have included below....

http://www.laruicci.com/