Back to NYC for One Last Semester

Back to NYC for One Last Semester

And so it goes, the end of another amazing summer at The River and the beginning of my last semester at Parsons. My friends and family in California know that I am dreading going back, as my friends and peers in New York anxiously await my arrival. On a sadder note, I will be leaving Gidget behind to bask in the California sun as I hesitantly embark on yet another new chapter in my life.

Upon returning to the big city, I will be moving to Brooklyn. My San Francisco transplant friends that now live in New York have guaranteed me that I will enjoy my experience far more in Brooklyn than I ever did in Manhattan. I will be moving in with a new and dear friend of mine, Devin. He too will positively add to my New York experience, as my last roommate did not.

I have five internship interviews lined up and am hopeful for each one independently. Despite not whole heartedly loving New York, I truly believe that I am passionate about the Fashion Industry above anything else and therefore, will be staying in NYC upon graduating. Unless of course, I win the Lottery or meet a sugar daddy. Until then, the more networking and resume building I do in New York, the better.

Monday starts the grueling process of interviewing. "Tell me about yourself." "Why do you want to work in fashion?" The questions are always the same and consistently presented by someone at least 8 years my younger. Equally discouraging as frustrating, the internships are also unpaid, yet grant me school credit and a tremendous amount of contacts.

I will be interviewing with Phillip Lim, Otte NY and DL1961 on Monday. Followed by Acne Studios and Derek Lam on Wednesday. Ultimately, I will only accept (if offered) one internship. Unfortunately, I am not guaranteed a job position once finished. Again, internships grants cheap labor for the company and great first hand experience and networking for me.

Fingers crossed that one of these companies offers me an internship this semester and possibly a paid position in the future. This girl has a shopping addiction and major student loans to pay off! Here is a brief description of the companies I am interviewing with:

Phillip Lim:
3.1 is about clothes that refine instead of define. A refinement that's a bit classic in attitude, but imparts a sense of individual style without looking or feeling forced. Confident, chic, and most of all, effortless.
-Phillip Lim

Otte NY:
Otte is a luxury shopping experience for women with distinct taste for understated luxury and contemporary design. Finding inspiration on the streets of New York and abroad, Otte is committed to bringing the best selection of pieces to our customers in a speciality setting with excellent service. True to our aesthetic, Otte strives to provide customers with a beautiful, well-curated selection of pieces from both established and emerging designers.

DL1961:
DL1961 Premium Denim is a vertically integrated brand that is family owned and operated by individuals who have been producing garments for over three generations. It is because of their expertise in denim, their passion for cutting-edge technology and their massive global network of production facilities that they were able to create what is now fittingly called the most revolutionary brand on the market.

 

Acne Studios:
Founded in Stockholm in 1996 by four creatives, Acne’s ambition was to create and develop a lifestyle brand through the production of desirable products as well as helping others build their brands. This ambition led to diverse assignments in advertising, graphic design and television production. These are the foundations of Acne.

 

Derek Lam:
Derek Lam is an American fashion designer born in San Francisco, California and is of Chinese American parentage. Lam is known for his pretty, girly fabrics backed by clean, crisp silhouettes. Signature pieces include raw silk sheath dresses with plunging necklines, wide-leg trousers in various wools and dainty cashmere pea coats cinched with stiff silk belts.

SHP in NYC

Katie Bimrose and Lenee Howe certainly made my year by coming and staying with me in New York for the last four days of my Spring Break.  I am so grateful to have both of them in my life and to be able to have them as friends!!  We did not miss a beat and our stomachs and livers are still recovering one week later!!

River Besties

 They arrived late Wednesday night in which we caught up over wine and homemade paninis…we wanted to be well rested for a lengthy day of shopping and eating the following day in SoHo.  I am known to be a compulsive shopper, yet being the devout Catholic that I am, decided to give it up for Lent.  So I took the opportunity to style out Lenee, stunning mother of two that needed a little closet revival.  Topshop and Steve Madden proved to be a big hit, and she was a stylish city diva within hours!  See transformation below:

Sexy Lenee Styled by Yours Truly

Thankfully I didn't give up sugar like I had in years past, so we decided to make an afternoon stop at the famous Magnolia Bakery where we devoured cupcakes, bread pudding and café au laits….amazing!!  

Afternoon Cupcake Break

That night we went to ABC kitchen for dinner and literally danced on table tops (in lieu of The Lodge pool table) at The Jane Hotel until 2am.  We decided to call it quits when a 23-year old wanted to take me home to meet his mother and Lenee and Katie couldn't shake some random British dude averaging five-foot-one in height.  We hopped in a cab, and before we knew it, we had gone from 23^rd street to 43^rd within minutes, when a car from the right hand lane nearly hit us and our cab driver had to swerve into the curb to get out of the way.  I quickly ushered us all out of the cab and proceeded to curse the cab driver out for what felt like forever.  My famous last words to him were “I just want to live!” which we continued to mimic for the rest of the trip.   

Pre-Cab Bitch Out

Friday was a whole other adventure in itself.  We went to The Standard Bar & Grill for lunch which would have been amazing, yet Katie’s salad arrived on the table with a large black hair in it.  When our waiter asked, “how is everything?” I exclaimed, “actually, there is a large black hair in my friend’s salad!”  Even though they didn't charge us for the salad, brought is out a complimentary dessert and endlessly apologized, I still felt that it was completely unacceptable for such a high-end restaurant.  We decided to burn off lunch by walking through The Chelsea Marketplace and along The Highline. 

  

On The Highline   

That night, our friend Gena from the city and Lenee’s sister in-law met us for dinner at my favorite spot on the Lower East Side, Schiller’s Liquor Bar.  We had one too many dirty dirty martinis and decided to walk to The Stanton Social and dance the night away.  West Coast hip-hop was on blast and we couldn’t be happier. 

 Dancing At The Stanton Social

Saturday was the day we had all been waiting for….St. Patrick’s Day!  Being one of my favorite celebration days in S.F., I was hoping New York wouldn't let me down, and it didn't!  We were off to a late start but put on our festive attire and walked to the Parade.  It was amazing.  So much pride, we loved it.  From there we walked to The Smith and had a boozy lunch and decided to continue the party at the bar where we met a ton of people!!  

St. Patty's Day Lunch at The Smith

Between the men in uniform and a couple of guys we met from San Francisco, we were having the time of our lives.  The beers were going down smooth and no sooner were we invited to go to The Rangers game.  We quickly hopped on board and left to experience a hockey game for the first time.  Taking a limo suddenly was being discussed and of course we obliged.  So the five of us hopped in a limo and off to Madison Square Garden we went!!  The game was out of control but by 11pm, we decided the day had finally come to an end.

Our New Friends

The next day, we woke up, had breakfast and Katie and Lenee went back to California.  I was so sad to see them go.  Having my friends here made me enjoy New York so much more and felt like I was in company of people who love me for who I am and vice-versa.  The River cannot come soon enough!!

xxx,

City Vixen

Time Flies When You Are Having Fun!

It has been way too long since I updated my blog, but between finals, applying for Spring Internships and preparing to fly home for a month, there just wasn't enough minutes in the day...even in the city that never sleeps.  After all was said and done, I received a 3.61 GPA, found an internship with the sales team at Alexander Wang, and manged to get Gidget approved as an emotional support dog.  Let's start there...

FYI, it is not that easy to have your dog approved as an emotional support dog.  It is different than a service dog; a service dog provides a service to someone needing physical assistance.  An emotional support dog, however, does just what it says; it gives support to someone in need of emotional stability, such as myself ;) After the shenanigans of the last flight with Gidget in tow, accompanied by panic attacks, I thought it was a good idea to have my therapist write a letter to the airlines stating that I needed Gidget for mental stability.  The letter is good for one year, she gets to sit on my lap and flies for free.

Gidget the Emotional Support Dog 

Even with all of this on my side, I still managed to sit next to a guy that was "allergic" to dogs.  Throughout the flight he managed to try and shew Gidget away with his hand and at one point asked me to move her, not to mention jumping violently every time Gidget moved and inch.  After about three hours of this, I said to him sternly, "do you want me to change the channel for you?  You're not even watching the T.V. and I'm getting real sick of watching you fiddle over there!"  He looked at me, turned his head away, and never said anything else for the rest of the flight.

Pre-Clubbin' Cocktails at Hotel Utah

From the moment I landed in San Francisco, I lived everyday as if it was my last in "the city" I know, love have even a greater appreciation for.  I flew in Friday night on a red eye and no sooner was I back at my favorite salon and inspiration, DiPietro Todd in Mill Valley filling in at the front desk.  Amazing colorist, Angel Castillo and his glamorous assistant, Kara Corvi, made my hair as shiny and gorgeous as ever!  That same night, my DPT sisters and I went to a club opening at The Grand and danced our little hearts out one vodka soda after the next.  New Year's Eve was spent at the one and only Mas Sake with bottle service and lots of sequins!

New Year's Eve at Mas Sake

I think I did more eating than anything else while I was home: a home cooked meal with Erin, dinner out with Ericka, Nicole and Lauren in  Bruno, Laconda with Jackson, Bar Tartine with Whitney and Stacy, a boozy lunch with Lauren at Kuleto's, a New Year's celebration with The Boys at Don Pisto's, lunch with my mom and sis at The Grove, dinner with KTB and Jenny at SPQR, a thank-you dinner from Matt and Sapao at Bistro Aix, family dinner at Westlake Joes, dinner at Bungalow 44 with my AXO sisters, a birthday celebration dinner at Fat Angel with KTB again, and just when I thought I couldn't eat anymore, one last bottomless mimosa brunch with Kara and Jen at Farmer Brown.  This doesn't even begin to list the locations of cocktail consumption, however it does explain the new found tightness in my clothes!

Get Your Fitness On with Sapao & Matty

During my "free time" in the day, I was either waxing at Salon Bruno or hanging out in The Sunset...standard.  My friends Matt and Sapao own a Jiu Jitsu studio, Ocean Beach Barra Brothers that I love to workout at.  And although I didn't do much working out with the exception of a couple of yoga classes here and there, I helped them with their bookkeeping to keep busy. This brought on a whole other saga of eating!  After being ridiculed for loving the Sunset all these years, it seems as if the hipsters have caught on and are strongly moving in.  What the hipsters offer that surfers often do not, is great organic and locally produced food, see: The Mission.  I had lunch at Outerlands once a week, visited Noriega Pizza, had many a coffee at Trouble Coffee, Beach Side Cafe and Devil's Teeth Bakery and supported Noriega Produce and Judahlicious on the regular.  I will say I did quite a few beach runs to ward off some of these calories.  The weather was at least 65 degrees everyday and I soaked up the sun as much as possible!  

Fort Funston

After moving to the East Coast, I realized that the West Coast is truly spoiled.  I forget how much there is to experience in such close proximity.  My dear friend Stacy set up a wine tasting trip for the DPT girls, Brian included!  We took a limo to Boon Fly cafe at the Carneros Inn in Napa for brunch, then did some bubbly tasting at Domaine Carneros, where we were mistaken for models (no joke) and then onto some more tasting at a place I can remember because I drank too much.  Good thing we had that limo to drive us home and some roadside tacos to sober us up!

Bacon Bloody Mary's at Boon Fly Cafe, Napa

After four weeks of gluttony, I am back in New York to start my internship and second semester at Parsons. It was way harder to leave this time around.  I am so grateful for ALL of my friends and family, and realize how important my community is.  I will be back ASAP!!  Until then, keep reading to stay up to date on the latest New York experiences.  I promise not to wait so long!

xxx City Vixen,

Jena