We decided to split up again today, and since I was heading to the garment district to indulge my love of fabric, I wouldn’t want to force that on anyone else who wasn’t similarly focused!
My efforts in this area were confined to only four or five shops, and I only bought fabric at two of them! At Spandex House I acquired some lovely stretch glittered leopard print velvet (yum!) and then at Spandex World I added to the mix some brown/green and some red/black tie dye stretch velvets. I’d ordered from House before, as they have pretty reasonable shipping prices to Oz, but only ever drooled at World – they have a slightly larger range but shipping prices are ridiculous.
I also trawled through a couple of trim stores, but decided I should keep to ebay for that!
I was drawn in to Lane Bryant as well, and picked up a couple of cute tees which do double duty as souvenirs – they have blingy apples in hotfix crystals on them!
JCPenney was also on my list – they have a Sephora store there and I was looking for makeup requests from friends at home, so I checked out their clothes after getting makeup (a letdown after the huge Woman section at Macy’s!)
By this time the Fashion and Technology exhibit at the museum at FIT was open, so I wandered through the clumps of fashion students running around trying to complete an assignment (“have you seen the Kitchen Sink dress? Is it actually called that? I’m sure I haven’t seen it. Is that the 1920s hat? Do we submit this online or hand it in?”) and people getting told off in stentorian tones for taking photos (probably the same disorganised students). The actual exhibit was as good as the people watching – focused on changes in technology and how that has influenced fashion: the spinning Jenny making cotton the most easily available textile; the jacquard and zigzag knitting machines revolutionising fabrics; the zipper; the advent of polyester and “wash’n’wear”; right up to heat-moulding fabrics, digital inkjet printing and 3D printing of whole garments. Wow!
While on this fashion bender, KW reminded me of the Project Runway episode where the designers had to use candy to make their designs, so I trundled up to Dylan’s Candy Store to have a bit of a gander. They had a couple of the dresses in the window… Hope they treated them with something as they would have been made over a year ago! They do have some great stuff there, like the signature lollipops, but also themed chocolate for each decade of the 20th century!
I met K down at Washington Square to do some people watching and then headed down to Bleeker Street to get dinner at Risotteria, a predominantly gluten free place. On the way we popped in at Bleeker Street Records, and saw a quite rotund kitty cat who was obviously the boss!
Risotteria was amazing – we sat down and they brought us fresh from the oven GF breadsticks as a matter of course, and they were SO tasty! I had pizza (of course), and so did K, then we were presented with the dessert menu. Unable to decide, I had an eclair (yum!) and asked for a choc-peanut butter cupcake to take away for later. Even yummier! The food wasn’t cheap, but that was mainly because of the exorbitant price of wine here – a so-so bottle of rose cost the same as the Veuve we had the other night!
Rolling our way home up Bleeker Street, we happened to pass a tea shop with the most delicious smelling tea blends, so of course we had to try some… And walked out half an hour later with multiple teas (‘glitter and gold’ smelled awesome AND has little gold flecks in it! How could I resist??) T2 teas are good, but this place was even better!
We also passed the Christian Louboutin shop… Luckily for us in the suggestive state we were in, the shop was closed! Gorgeous shoes in the window though…
– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:8th Ave,New York,United States
Two Weeks Away 