travel – Page 2

My City, Through A Fresh Pair of Eyes

As promised in my last post, I am sharing the details of my “staycation” – AKA the week I spent as a wannabe tour guide! I had so much fun rediscovering my two homes (Los Angeles + Orange County) with my best friend, Alex, who was visiting from Mississippi. Alex had never visited the West Coast before, so I made an ambitious list of activities for her weeklong visit. I really wanted to give her the full LA experience and we covered SO much ground in just a few days!

We went to places all over Los Angeles and Orange County, including “super LA” dining spots such as The Ivy, Perch, Bottega Louie, and The Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel. We went to the Santa Monica Pier, the 3rd Street Promenade, Rodeo Drive, The Grove, Fashion Island, and peeked into a ton of shops on Melrose and Robertson Blvd. As you can probably tell – it was a busy week! We knocked out a ton of historical LA/Hollywood locations while on a bus tour of Hollywood, which was really helpful since the days were packed enough already.

We spent one day Orange County, where we met up with my lifelong friend, Shayna. We walked around Balboa Island and then visited The Pelican Hill Resort & Spa for a yummy dinner at the Coliseum Pool & Grill restaurant. Overall, I think my favorite part was showing Alex around my college campus at USC! I showed Alex the buildings I had classes in, explained who the heck Tommy Trojan was, and even pointed out the huge statue of Traveler 🙂 (Alex could probably tell that I am already sad that my time at USC is only months from being over! But that’s a long sappy post for another day…haha). As I mentioned in my last post, Alex and I received our acceptance emails from Teen Vogue Fashion University on her last day in California. That was a fantastic way to end the week! We left off saying “I’ll see you in March!” instead of goodbye!

I had a ton of fun being Alex’s tour guide for the week. I’ve realized that seeing my everyday surroundings from someone else’s point of view really deepened my appreciation for the places & spaces that I sometimes take for granted. I hope you all enjoy taking a peek at our weeklong adventure in Southern California! Enjoy!

The Ivy, Beverly Hills

The Santa Monica Pier

Benihana, Santa Monica. Julian picked this place – we had a great time!

The Santa Monica Pier

Lunch at The Ivy, Beverly Hills. My friend Maegan from USC joined us!

The Ivy, Beverly Hills

Shopping on Melrose

Heading of to Perch, in Downtown LA.

#Twinning

Spotted these beauties at Fred Segal while shopping on Melrose!

A quick stop at The Roosevelt Hotel while on our Hollywood Legends tour.

A quick stop at The Chinese while on our Hollywood Legends tour.

We had a great view of Los Angeles from this wonderful viewpoint while on our Hollywood tour!

Being super touristy with the Hollywood sign! We really loved going on this Hollywood tour!

Balboa Island

A beautiful sunset outside of Fashion Island!

Dinner at Perch in Downtown.

The pool at The Pelican Hill Resort

Dinner at The Pelican Hill Resort.

Walking the red carpet at The Beverly Hills Hotel!

Inside of the Beverly Hills Hotel

Having a “star moment” outside of the Beverly Hills Hotel!

The beautiful pool area at The Beverly Hills Hotel

Ok, so we even stopped by the pool restaurant for iced coffees after lunch at the Polo Lounge! Clearly, we couldn’t get enough of the Beverly Hills hotel 🙂

Feel free to leave your favorite Los Angeles/Orange County locations in this post’s comments! I’d love to stop by anywhere that we might have missed out on. Thanks for stopping by!

Categories: Lifestyle, Style, travel

Teen Vogue + San Francisco

TEEN VOGUE UNIVERSITY, HERE WE COME!

I have some super exciting news that I have been dying to share with Pretti Please – I have been accepted into the Design/Styling major at Teen Vogue Fashion University! I applied back in November and have been anxiously waiting to hear back from Teen Vogue. I am absolutely thrilled about being accepted! In March, I will travel to New York City to attend classes and hear first-hand from the top names in the industry about their experiences in navigating the fashion and business worlds. I can’t wait to share my experience with Teen Vogue with all of you! This year’s speakers include Rebecca Minkoff, Zac Posen, and Jessica Simpson! This is a huge dream of mine and I am so so excited that it is becoming a reality.

I am also thrilled that my equally fashion-obsessed BFF, Alex (in photo above), has also been accepted to the Design/Styling major. You might recognize her from my “Parsons Experience” post about the time I spent in Parson’s Summer Intensive Studies program in Fashion Design. You also might have seen her over on my Instagram account last week while she was visiting me in Los Angeles! Alex is from Mississippi and had never been to the West Coast, so I gave her a week-long tour of all my favorite Los Angeles/Orange County locations. It was super fun! We received our acceptance emails at the same time on the day that she flew back home, so it was a great way to end her trip. We immediately went out and bought copies of the magazine for a little photoshoot on my college’s campus, of course!

Stay tuned for a fun post coming later this week about all of our SoCal adventures!

Today I’m sharing some pictures from my wonderful trip to San Francisco with my boyfriend, Julian. We went to Fisherman’s Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, The Rotunda restaurant at Neiman Marcus, and Union Square (just to name a few spots!). We rang in the new year at a huge New Year’s Eve party held at the beautiful Fairmont hotel. The event planners hired circus performers come entertain the guests, which had Julian and I cracking up all night. When the clock struck 12 they released hundreds of balloons from the ceiling! It was a beautiful night.

My favorite part of the trip was just walking around and looking at all of the shops while enjoying the end of the holiday season. The city looked magical with all of the Christmas lights and Christmas trees still up! I must have photographed at least ten trees while on this trip, so I had to narrow the photos down to a couple favorites, which you will see below. I hope you all enjoyed your New Year’s Eve celebrations and are off to a happy & healthy new year.

Thanks for stopping by!

Categories: Lifestyle, Style, travel

Sharing My Parsons Experience!

I am so excited to finally share the work I created during Parsons’ Summer Intensive Studies Program! Now that I am back home in Southern California, I have a LOT more free time…which means that I have more time to devote to blogging! I’ve spent the past few days unpacking, preparing for my internship, and relaxing. It feels great to relax after the month I spent on-the-go in New York! When I returned home a few days ago, I was eager to share my project from Parsons with my friends and family. And now, I get to share my project with all of you!

Long story short, the theme of my particular fashion design class was “New York + Light” and we were invited to breathe life into a collection inspired by New York and light. My collection was inspired by the energy that flowers bring to the city, which is why the clothing is very feminine with a floral-themed “color story.” Make sure to read my previous post about Parsons in order to see my creative process from start to finish!

You will see that pink top I created (pictured below!) underwent quite a few design changes as the program went on. Overall, I am extremely happy with the final product – it became more and more unique as I took risks with designs and gained more confidence in my sewing skills!

And here are some more shots of my friends and I exploring the city!

I had a great time at Parsons and enjoyed sharing my experience with you all. I learned so many valuable skills and met so many wonderful people – it was truly the experience of a lifetime! Thanks for reading, Pretties!

Categories: Lifestyle, Style, travel

The City That Never Sleeps

Hello, Pretties!

It feels like forever since I’ve had time to sit down and put a blog post together! I’ve been working hard in Parson’s Summer Intensive Studies Program (in Fashion Design) for the past few weeks and I couldn’t be more thrilled to share all of my recent experiences!

The course is fast paced since we are learning in a short month what a typical Parsons design student learns in a whole semester. There have been a lot of homework assignments, field trips, projects, and new concepts involved in the course and I have already learned SO much. The whole course is geared towards preparing us for our final presentation. The final presentation consists of 1 constructed garment from our collection, 10 fashion illustrations of our entire collection, and 10 complete “flats” of our collection. The final presentation is graded by all of our professors during our last class session and is the culmination of all of the work put forth during the Summer Intensive.

In order to prepare us for this big presentation, we have four classes that rotate throughout the week: 2D, 3D, Drawing, and Digital. In 2D, our professor helps us brainstorm ideas for our clothing line’s concept. In 3D, we are taught how to construct clothing, create patterns, sew etc. In Drawing and Digital, we are taught how to create our clothing line by utilizing the art of fashion illustration and photoshop. Needless to say, we are kept very busy during the week!

On the weekends, we typically finish our homework up and venture out into the city. My favorite outings so far have been going to tea at The Plaza, a picnic in Central Park, watching a baseball game at Yankee stadium, exploring the dozens of awesome consignment shops in SoHo, and spending a wonderful weekend with my boyfriend (who was kind enough to fly from Los Angeles to spend a weekend exploring NYC with me!). I want to share my experiences in photos, so please take a scroll through them and let me know if you have any questions about places to visit in NYC (or my experience at Parsons!). Stay tuned for my next post – it will definitely include my final presentation and constructed garment. Hopefully, it will all turn out fabulously! {Many of the photos below are of me and a great group of girls that I was lucky enough to meet at my Residence Hall.} Enjoy!

Can’t wait to show you my final project! 🙂 Thanks for reading, Pretties!

Categories: Lifestyle, Style, travel

London, Paris, and Dublin | Travel Photo Diary

Over this recent summer, I travelled to Europe with my parents to London, Dublin, and Paris. It was the best 3 weeks of my life! Why? Well, I love traveling with my parents because my dad is my personal tour guide (seriously guys) and my mom is my shopping buddy. I saw so many historical landmarks and got to explore three amazing cities. As you will see, I took about a million photos on the trip. I’ve posted some of my favorites below! Most are of historical landmarks and my favorite experiences from my trip. Take a look and see why I am still so obsessed with my trip to Europe! #nostalgia

{How cool are these seats?! They were HUGE}

{They truly do have everything at Harrods!}
{My dad and I got the salted carmel}
{My big gift from the trip!}

{TEA}

DUBLIN!

{We visited the National Museum of Ireland to view some paintings done by an ancestor of mine, Thomas Bridgford! They put all the paintings in one room and we got to hear some of the history about them. SO COOL!}

{AWW}

{Eating at a cute little place called AVOCA in Dublin}

PARIS!

{A blurry picture of my mom and I at Chanel – notice this staircase from Coco before Chanel?! We visited all SIX Chanels in Paris, on foot. SO much fun!}

{Lover’s Lock Bridge}

{Just a little windy…}

{We went to Mass at Note Dame!}

{We LOVED the cafes in Paris! So much people-watching}
{Versailles!}

{Sacré-Cœur Basilica}

{The best view of all of Paris! Taken from the Roman Catholic church called “Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris,” commonly known as Sacré-Cœur Basilica}
{Tea at The Ritz with my dad, #GATSBY}

{SPOTTED SOME ADPI DIAMONDS!}

As you can tell, I had a ton of fun! It was my first time visiting Paris. I have to say, it is my NEW favorite city in Europe (sorry, London). I hope that you enjoyed viewing my photos! I will keep you all updated on when I plan on heading back to Europe.

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