Personal Narrative: Fashion Business In New York City

A small, light purple room featuring purple chairs attached to foldable desks, sits on the third floor of the LIM college’s Maxwell Hall building looks out to see another wall to a building, similar to what you would see looking out most windows in New York City buildings. Although the windows were closed, you could still hear the loud sounds of the lively city, cars honking, construction work being done, occasional yelling; things you hear throughout New York at all times of the day. There were about thirty other people in the Inside the Fashion Business class that I took over the summer of 2016. The first day began with introductions and a quick description of the class before professor Erica Lavelanet began her first presentation. As the

Our dorm building was near Central Park so we began by walking there to look around. From the area that we went to, you could see buildings all around the beautiful, green eight hundred forty three acres of trees, flowers, grass, and people. Walking along Central Park you get to see two very different types of land. On one side you can see the park with its green grass and trees all around. The other side is buildings and streets. That’s why I love walking along Central Park, the completely different sides showing a comparison of two worlds. One side reminded me of Asheville, what my life was like now, while the other side showed me New York, what I hope could be my future life. We walked along 5th Avenue, a major shopping area in New York. We didn’t go into the stores that we were passing but looked in at the things in the window wishing we could have them. We ended up walking all the way to Times Square, one of the bigger tourist destinations in the city. Walking up to it, you could see the sea of people growing. There were tons of people walking around, taking pictures, shopping. I was blinded by the bright lights of the billboards and the realization that I was in New York alone, without family or anyone that I knew. I had been to New York twice before this but being alone is very different from being somewhere with family or friends. It wasn’t scary to me being alone but knowing that I had to take care of myself did. I would be getting my own food, making sure I wake up and get to class on time every day, knowing where I was going and how to get places; that is what scared me. I could see so many people, tourists mainly but also people living there. I hadn’t even been there for more than two days yet but I knew that this was somewhere that I wanted to