What Jen Did at New York Fashion Week

Well, that was all a bit mental, wasn’t it?

Last Saturday I flew out to New York to work at New York Fashion Week with one of my clients. It was a whirlwind of clothing, cabs and, um, Adrien Brody. I didn’t get much (read: any) time to take proper photos, so here is a selection of Instagram shots and some words to go with each one.

I arrived in New York around midnight on Saturday night after a lovely flight from Heathrow – am I the only person who actually quite likes flying? 6 hours with no emails is bliss. I met my colleague at JFK and we headed to the apartment we rented for our 3-day stay. After lots of recommendations from Twitter friends, we used AirBnB to book a private penthouse apartment on the Upper West Side (at an extremely reasonable price) rather than a hotel, and I’m now an absolute convert to this kind of travelling. The apartment was amazing, as was the early morning view from the roof terrace!

I didn’t get chance to do my usual planning before the trip so had no idea what was nearby, but the neighbourhood we were in had a brilliant mix of cute cafés and cool restaurants, including Spring Natural Kitchen where I had this delicious veggie burger with the best sweet potato fries.

I was in town for New York Fashion Week but spent most of it at my client’s head offices, rather than at the Lincoln Center where all the action is! I did get chance to check it out though, and if you read my last post you’ll know I spotted a rather famous (and bearded) face…

The weather was glorious during my stay so I was pleased we managed a quick pit stop at Central Park – there is NO better place to enjoy a Whole Foods salad.

The Upper West Side is a really family-friendly part of New York, with lots of community spirit and plenty of small businesses to support. The first breakfast of my trip came courtesy of Good Enough to Eat, an adorable restaurant complete with white picket fence! These strawberry and almond waffles were insanely good.

While walking around near our apartment, we came across this amazing ‘Acts of Kindness’ bus. It’s been handpainted with positive messages encouraging people to be kind to others – seeing it was such a boost!

After a hectic day, it was lovely to go back to a proper home (even though we did have to climb 4 flights of steep stairs to get there!). I managed to snatch a few minutes of calm as the sun went down over the roof terrace one evening.

Walking down 5th Avenue made me feel like a real New Yorker… although taking a photo proves I’m not.

I won’t go into too much detail about the work I was doing while in New York, but I didn’t go out there as a blogger – I’m a freelance Online Community Manager and have a client that shows at NYFW. Safe to say it was beyond amazing to experience everything firsthand and I worked with some truly fantastic people.

And now I’m back at home, in Leeds, feeling very ordinary and not at all fashion-y. But it all starts again when London Fashion Week kicks off on Friday… I’m jet lagged, I have no clean clothing and I’m staying at three different hotels in three days. Wish me luck!