Field Trips

Ciao! This week was the first week of classes here in Florence. I am taking Fashion Consumer Behavior, Italian, Fashion Photography, History of Prostitution, and Anthropology of Fashion and Desirability. The first week of classes any semester is always the same, learning about the class itself and going over the syllabus. I can already tell you though, that classes here are nothing like classes in the States, or Kansas for that matter. Every class we get to take field trips to museums or galleries; we get to embrace the history all around us. All the teachers want us to enjoy coming to class. There are no lectures with 100 or more people in them. The most I have in my classes is around 25 people. I have already learned so much here compared to if I was back home.

My street that I live on is pretty much central to anything. We live down the street from the so called "fashion district" here in Florence. Here I am a broke college fashion student heading to class walking past Gucci, Armani, Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Tiffany & Co., wishing I could walk in the stores and just try on a pair of shoes. For our first class in Fashion Photography, we had to go and walk around the fashion district and just take pictures of random people on the street. We call it street fashion. It amazing having the opportunity to do this. It's not like we would take a field trip to Aggieville just to take pictures of people.

Last weekend, we went to the Ponte Vecchio and shot some good pictures--

Today I went on a little field trip to see artisans handmake crafts. There were jewelry makers, interior design people, a man making light fixtures out of recycled things and there was a family making leather sandals. They said it takes one hour to make one shoe and that they send the shoes all over the world, even Varney's in New York.

A little trivia for the day that I learned my first day of class--

Ever wondered why capri pants are called that? Emilio Pucci invented them on the island of Capri!