Textile Mill

Today we went on another mini trip into Prato, Italy. My friends, Steph and Abby,  and I all went to the textile mill to meet up with Roberto. Roberto owns the fabric mill that only uses recycled wool. Roberto works alone with only 14 workers total.

The process firsts begins with used wool garments that come compressed and then his workers take it apart garment by garment sorting them by pure wool and wool blends. Roberto only works with 100% wool and sends away the blends. His workers are trained to know how pure the wool is, then they move onto sorting them into colors. while sorting them into colors they must also remove all the findings and labels. Once that is done they seperate them into fine wools and chunky knits. Each worker is set to go a different task. After they are sorted they are then compressed and then shipped out to break apart or shred the wool. This process turns it into fiber which is what then Roberto sells to his buyers. you wouldn't believe how vibrant and beautiful the colors could be. I thought this little mini trip was very interesting and am glad to have gone to one of the few mills left in Prato.

Breaking Dawn

As a Twilight fan, I had to go see Breaking Dawn the 4th book/movie of the series. And better yet to watch it in Italy with great friends. I walked all over the city of Florence to finally find the movie theater Astro 2 just in time to enjoy to now say one of my favorite films.

Although the movie was in English it did have Italian subtitles on the bottom of the screen, this actually did  help me learn how to speak some more Italian. I truly loved the movie and the theater was really nice that I would come back to watch another anyday. The price was pretty average 7.50 euro and 6 euro with your student ID!

Textile Museum

Last week we traveled  to Prato, Italy to visit a Textile Museum. I loved it there so much! I loved how there was so much that I could touch and feel. There were so many new and innovative new textiles to see and feel. This visit was great for my current drawing project. The various smart fabrics were helpful to me for creating my activewear brand. I really enjoyed all the eco-friendly textiles and how the fashion industry is trying to push sustainability.

I would really like to return back to the textile museum soon to see another exhibit.This past exhibit also had student work, that was stunning! Seeing the award winners and seeing how innovative was really motivating. One of my favorite things was the inflatable by Christopher Raeburn made out of recycled parachutes.

The David!

So on our free student choice site visit I decided to finally go see the David by Michelangelo at the Galleria Academia. I just mainly wanted to see the David so it was kind of hard to pay attention to all the other pieces of art in the exhibit. But I did see many various sculptures that were also displayed. I see all the minute detailing in the carvings of the marble and it makes me lightheaded just thinking of all that time and effort was put into it.But first and foremost, I have always heard how much larger the David is in person, but after seeing it, it was HUGE, I don't understand how they could have gotten it into the museum. I learned that there is a crack in the original David along his leg and there are cameras and motion detectors on it to monitor if theres an earthquake or something that may happen.

It was nice to get back into the Italian culture after a week London, in which was another fabulous city. I still have not decided what my favorite city in the world is, there is just so much to explore in so little time.