One of the highlights of my year has to be my trip to Italy this week - I don't even know where or how to start expressing how important this trip was for me. I was given the opportunity to visit one of the largest and oldest design archives in Europe to research and pull fabrics for work but more importantly to put my Coronation scarf line into development. I was sitting in this incredible building, on Lake Como with my scarf designs on the table surrounded by Louis Vuitton and Hermes scarf samples as examples of the type of quality we can expect. I sat there and just told myself to really really remember and enjoy this moment. When I left uni all I wanted was to have something I designed in a shop and that happened pretty quickly after I graduated so I just let the rest happen in its own way. If someone had told me when I left uni that all of these incredible things would happen in my life within 4 years of graduating I don't know if I would have believed them - mainly because this is the type of thing I read about in magazines or saw on TV - I guess working in the fashion industry was never on my radar in the first place which has really taught me not to plan life and just take it as it comes.
I left for Milan on Sunday morning and arrived in the freezing cold and rain - a random cold blast hit Europe over the weekend! But still I ventured out and saw the Duomo di Milano which literally took my breath away - it was an incredible sight! Inside was stunning as well and after I had warmed up a bit I left and made my way to the Castello Sforzesco which had beautiful grounds to walk around and explore. I couldn't help but think that in NZ I could barely make it to Wellington from Auckland without someone helping me at the airport and now I travel around Europe solo and quite enjoy it really. Only hassle I had in Milan was local people hanging around the ticket machines trying to help and then ask for money but other than that it was very safe and easy to get around.
The next morning I boarded a train for a half hour journey to Lake Como and spent the next two days there for work - it was still chilly but the sun was out and the lake was stunning, really reminded me of Queenstown actually. I finished work then headed to the airport and
got home round 11:30pm and was up bright and early for work the next day!
I worked out that over the last 10 weekends I have had two full ones in London and one of them was working at the fashion show so I am looking forward to chilling out a bit this weekend and checking out some fireworks - next Thursday I fly up to Scotland to spend some time with my family before heading to the All Blacks game near Edinburgh!
