College Road Trip: Portland

Wearing:

Blazer - True Envy, Blouse - Forever 21, Skirt - Target, Boots - New Look

I'm back!  Sorry for the radio silence guys.  For the past week and a half or so, my mom and I traveled through the Northwest on a college road trip.  We started in Portland, where my cousin lives.  We partly chose to travel through the Northwest because of that, but also because I signed up for a summer studio at the Art Institute of Portland.  The best way I can describe it is sort of like fashion camp (but they also had other sections of the camp like photography, graphic design, culinary, etc).  I had a fun time there and met some great people, however I did have a little issue with the class itself.  I signed up for the fashion marketing portion versus the fashion design option.  However, not enough people signed up for the marketing side, so they made us all design students.  The first day, we spent a few hours on the marketing side; that's it.  That what the board I made was for; who is our girl we are selling to?  What's her style?  What is she like?  But after the board making process it was all design, design, design.  Everyone made their own tote bag with the same basic pattern.  My other small issue with my class was that my instructors seemed a bit unprepared.  They obviously knew what they were doing and how to sew, but they were rather unorganized and didn't have too much supplies for us to work with.  That being said, I'm satisfied with how my bag turned out.  I think my bag translated well from design to an actual product.

At the end of the day, a good portion of the students (myself included) went back to the hotel.  We stayed in the Mark Spencer hotel in downtown Portland.  My roommates and I had a great room; it was on the top floor and had a great view (the photos of the city were taken from my room).  The hotel was very nice.  On the first night at the hotel, two students were sent home from the camp for climbing to the roof of the hotel by the fire escape.  That was an interesting conversation the next day.

Overall, I had a fun four days at the summer studio.  On the last day everyone presented their projects; our group presenting our bags.  That's when I wore the outfit in the first three photos (I was trying to dress like my customer: a young, fashionable, minimalistic, European woman... did I achieve it?).  After Portland, my mom and I went to Seattle and Ellensburg, WA.  I'll have posts on those coming soon as well as a Portland and Seattle Haul.