COOL CULTURAL PLACES I GOT TO EXPLORE

The first short course I took at Central Saint Martins in London was called “Cool Hunting Fashion”. It’s a strange name I grant you, but the promise of exploring London with an experienced instructor and fellow classmates was what made me sign up for it.

My instructor was essentially a professional “cool hunter”, meaning she explores and observes what is going on in the world and uses it to create fashion trends. Throughout the week we would travel outside of the classroom at Granary Square and visit the following places:

1 . Victoria and Albert Museum

There was a beautiful exhibit of fashion from the 1700s to today that we went to see. There was also the world famous Alexander MacQueen exhibit on at the time, but the tickets were always sold out. The architecture of the museum itself is just as amazing as the art inside.

2. Lamb’s Conduit Street

Where anyone who’s anyone gets their bespoke suits and other fancy knick-knacks. The street gets its strange name from the man who gave the money for a conduit to be restored in this street in the 1500s, thus providing water for the residents in that area.

3. The Design Museum.

They actually had the “Design of Year” exhibit going on, where you got to see all of the designs up for top designs of the year, many of which had to do with conservation of resources and the environment. The museum is in the middle of a really cool location right on the River Thames. Tower Bridge is just outside as well as a wonderfully coastal boardwalk-like area.

4. Old Spitalfields Market

This extensive market is held in a marketplace over 350 years old. It features vintage treasures, jewelry, maps and fashion and lots of cool food trucks and stands. I even spotted two ladies in full 1950’s garb.

5. Box Park

Box Park is a two-story setup of teeny tiny stores – except they’re not actually stores. They are mobile storage units locked and stacked together to create a small city of unique pop-up shops and even well-known classics like Gap. All with restaurants and balcony seating on the second floor! I doubt I’ll ever see anything like it anywhere else.

6. Portabello Market

Portabello Market is the vintage market to end all vintage markets. Taking place in the famous Notting Hill area, this place is a popular weekend activity for locals and tourists alike. There was even more vintage clothing, countless vintage tea trays, rings, clocks, etc. Move further on down and you’ll come to the food market where Greek women stir big vats of olives and men are hanging fish from the ceiling of their stalls and their are fattening pastries everywhere you look. Fun fact: the picture on the right is from the walk to Portobello Market and is actually the flat where George Orwell once lived.

 

A COLLECTION OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES – LANGUAGE

Before this trip, I had never traveled out of the country. I found myself not only in a brand new country, but also going to classes with people from all over the world. Just to test my memory, in all three of my courses I encountered people from the following countries:
– China
– Thailand
– Spain
– Brazil
– The Philippines
– France
– Switzerland
– Canada
– Poland
– India

​   There was only one other person in all three of the courses that was from England, and only one other from the United States (Funnily enough, she goes to Washington University in St. Louis and we actually have a friend in common. It’s a small world. )
It never failed to boggle my mind how well all of them could speak English. One or two of them struggled, but it was usually because English was the third or fourth language they had learned. I often times found myself wanting to apologize because I only knew English and a smattering of Spanish vocabulary and grammar. Learning a second language isn’t really pushed in American education until about high school, which is really too late to become fluent in a language easily. Most of the people I talked to had been instructed in English from a young age and that is why it came so easy for them. Culturally, it’s just not as important for us to learn another language.
Despite most all of them speaking English well, there were a few times when communication got a bit…wonky. For example, one Saturday morning I got breakfast with a girl from Spain. We were staying in the same student accommodation building in Islington and walked to a place close by. After we had breakfast we were sitting there, just chatting. She mentioned how early it was and she was still sleepy. I said, “I’ve had coffee so I’m ready to go,” meaning, I’ve had caffeine so I’m energetic, ready for the day. She replied, “Oh, well we can get the check now, then.” It took me a few moments to realize that from a someone who doesn’t speak English as a first language, she took that statement literally, that I was ready to leave the restaurant.  Most of the time, language barriers weren’t a total lack of understanding, they were just misunderstandings of exact meaning or implication of words.

Working on projects with people from different countries brings out all sorts of phrases and words you don’t know. When working on a photoshoot, the classmate from London asked me if I had any “kirby grips” she could borrow. I had to admit to her, I had no idea what she was talking about. Someone else produced a “kirby grip” for her to use and that was when I realized it was simply a bobby pin. Later in the day I told her that for the next set of photos we were going to take a field trip to the other side of the building. She laughed because “field trip”  wasn’t a phrase she had heard of. We may both speak English, but it is certainly not the same language.

In fact it’s amazing the differences you’ll hear if you just listen. While exiting a tour at Buckingham Palace, I overheard an older woman ask an employee if there was a café nearby. Though she asked about a CAfé, not a caFÉ, as I’m used to hearing it. On the subway, called “the Tube”, I don’t know how many times I heard over the intercom “this is a Northern line train via Kings Cross St. Pancras”. Except they pronounced it “vy-a” and not “vee-a”.

When I first arrived in England, the people I checked into my room with, or helped me with my luggage would always ask me “Are you okay?” It really confused me at first, because any time someone asks you that it’s because you don’t look okay. Well, I thought, I just got off a nine hour flight and am incredibly jet-lagged and slightly terrified and lost. I probably don’t look “okay”. So I forgot all about it. Then my instructor for my first course would always ask the class first thing in the morning, or after lunch or at any time really “Are you okay?” in her strong Scottish accent. At this point I started realizing, they’re not really asking if I’m okay out of concern because they think I’m not, that must just be the phrase British people use the way we’d use “Hey, how’s it going?” or “What’s up?”.

Though we may live in a global society and, for the most part, communicate with ease, there are always little moments to learn from when you meet people from around the world.

WELCOME TO MY BLOG

​Hello, and welcome to my blog. Here’s a little introduction:

For three weeks I got to be a fashion student at the world renowned art school, Central Saint Martins. The school is located just across Regent’s Canal from Kings Cross Station. It always smells like strong coffee, paper, and musty water from the fountains outside and is always alive with busy students and professionals in the fashion industry hurrying up and down the stairs. I attended three short courses(each a week long) in fashion communication during the week days and explored the city in the evenings and weekends. In three weeks I took hundreds of photos, got lost, walked thousands of steps, saw beautiful things  and got lost a little more.

Posts on this blog with tell the story of my time in London in small pieces as well as go into a bit of what travel is and why we do it.