Wednesday 10th January 2018
After breakfast, the first thing on our agenda for day two was to visit MoMa, the Museum of Modern Art. I had wanted to visit this the last time I came to New York, however, with it being the height of summer, there was always massive queues to enter the building. We knew that we would not have time to visit many of the exhibitions so we opted for the one that was most related to our course; Items: Is Fashion Modern?
The exhibition was larger than I expected and was spread over several joining rooms. Items: Is Fashion Modern? explores the present, past and in some cases the future of 111 items of clothing and accessories that have had a strong impact on the world in the 20th and 21st centuries, and which continue to hold currency today. I saw some of the classic pieces of clothing including: the Levi’s 501s, the Breton shirt, and the Little Black Dress as well as ancient and cultural pieces such as the sari, the pearl necklace, the kippah, and the keffiyeh. I was similarly interested seeing items with pioneering materials, approaches, and techniques including a biofabricated leather and cotton t-shirt. This to me this extends the conversation of modern fashion into the near and distant futures. It was insightful seeing the history of these garments and allowed me to connect this with their present recombination and use. The exhibition considers the many relationships between fashion and functionality, culture, aesthetics, politics, labor, identity, economy, and technology.
Next stop was the Rockefeller Centre; the Top of the Rock. The view from the top is just magnificent! I loved just standing and looking out, taking in the sites all around us. I was so surprised by how quiet it was; we were extremely lucky in the fact that we could take as many photos as we wanted, wherever we wanted and not jostle with other tourists. It was such a relaxed environment and more enjoyable. We also picked a wonderful day to do it; although it was cold, it was sunny and bright.
After seeing Central Park from the Rockefeller viewing platform, we took a walk to famous park. I had been before with my family and we hired bikes to go around on. This was my favourite part of that holiday and so I was more than happy to return. This time drastically contrasted the weather from before, the full sun to cold and snow. It was beautiful to see the settled snow all over the park and we stopped to take photos on the bridge. The water underneath however was frozen solid with the ducks having to find the only available patch of water to swim in. We also had a look at the ice rink in the centre; we had planned to go on it, however it was getting dark and we still had places to visit.
We chose to go to Times Square in the evening as we wanted to see all of the lights and lit-up billboards. The square was very busy with tourists all doing the same thing as us, taking phots and taking in the bright colours and animations everywhere you looked. Once we had all of the photos we wanted, we headed to M&M World to have a look around at all of the M&M related products. I have been to the Leister Square store many times and this store had the same sweet smell that hits you as soon as you walk in! Continuing with the chocolate theme, we popped into the Hershey’s store and we got a free taster of their classic bar. Next stop was Sephora and Inglot, two makeup shops. None of us brought anything as we had planned our shopping days to be later in the week. Having said this, I was tempted by the make your own pallets in Inglot; I had never seen this before.
On the way back to grab some food to take back to the hotel, I spotted a Dr. Martens Store across the road on Broadway. I quickly popped in to take some photos for my current uni project brief so that I could compare the UK stores with the New York one. It turns out the layout is pretty similar and the products are identical.
Rachel
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