More Than 100 fashion Designers Creatively Describe Their Adventures Around The World
Who says women like to keep it safe by staying at home? They haven’t met these women fashion designers who are intrepid traversing the world searching for the best textiles, fabrics and ideas to bring to the runway … oh, and along the way they learn so much more about our humanity that enriches them and their designs for the clothes we wear.
Diane von Furstenberg, president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, knows all too well how travel influences fashion as she describes fashion designers and professionals in the industry as being the most well traveled outside of travel agents (Girls That Roam’s addition to her assertion) out of other professions. So, why not ask the “who’s who” of the fashion world all sorts of questions about their gallivanting around the world and put it into a book? That’s what Diane did in 2011, when she published American Fashion Travel: Designers on the Go
The result was an amazing array of travel stories and insight from some of our favorite fashion designers. Girls That Roam perused the colorful pages enjoying fun and funky Betsy Johnson, who loves uptown New York when she isn’t searching for sun, fun, and beaches when she isn’t spending time with her grandchildren.
As you may know, the colorful and spunky 72-year-old fashion designer will be appearing on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars this fall.
Betsy is known for her bubble gum sugar coated ways, and we love that, but many of the designers in this book are right after Girls That Roam’s heart diving deep into cultures learning about the people and the places and being eco-friendly and socially responsible. This makes us want to try on their clothes and wear them out onto the streets even more.
The Unexpected
Diane writes, “I love the unknown, the unexpected encounter, and that is why I relish traveling by myself. I like meeting new people and seeing new things I’ve never before witnessed,” in the foreword of the coffee table book filled with some of the world’s most renown fashion designers’ answering a select string of questions about their experiences traveling around the world. Their responses are put together in a journal and scrapbook format filled with personal photos and their own handwriting so it feels like you are reading from their personal travel journals.
“How you travel is a symbol of your life” writes Diane, who travels light and is unafraid to go anywhere in the world alone or accompanied by her husband as they sail around the globe on their boat.
In the book, Diane and other designers talk about their experiences as well as give advice for being intrepid in your travels.
Fashion designers Julie Chaiken of Chaiken Clothing, Rachel Roy, and Tina Lutz of Lutz & Patmos travel has been a way of life for them, similar to Diane, who has been traveling since she was 9-years old. They all started exploring with their adventure seeking parents as far back as they can remember.
We love that San Francisco designer Julie of Chaiken Clothing simply doesn’t settle on a single destination preferring to keep moving and discovering the beauty of many places carrying on her parent’s motto for traveling. Even with that love of adventure, she still finds herself drawn to Mexico where she creates many memories.
Another young traveler, fashion designer Tina’s parents’ had the same motto, which was “the world is too big to go to the same place twice,” always making for new adventures as they never went back to the destination no matter how beautiful it was. Yet, Lutz, paused for a moment finding her heart and happy memories with family and friends at the Rockhouse Hotel in Jamaica, that she helped design and where she married her husband, Justin. It’s the only place she returns to time and time again, other than home.
Other than that, she maintains her family tradition scoping out the world’s treasured and undiscovered destinations one adventure after another.
Travel captured fashion designer Rachel early in life too, when her parents took her on many road trips around the world. She passed that tradition onto her daughter getting her started early collecting stamps in her passport. That wasn’t reason enough to love this designer, Girls That Roam really took to heart that this “Back Seat Betty,” loves traveling on a motorcycle with “my man,” she writes, when it’s just the two of them, when asked about her preferred modes of traveling.
Fashion designers Donna Karan and Colette Malouf also caught Girls That Roam’s heart charting out of the way places diving into the depths of the culture and keeping it sustainable staying at eco-lodges and being socially responsible.
How To Travel Fashionably
Get inspired. Tina reads BlackTomato.co.uk, MrandMrsSmith.com, TabletHotels.com; and SuperFuture.com/SuperTravel when she’s seeking out interesting destinations, she writes.
Embrace the unexpected. Diane advises, to “expect the unexpected” when traveling, be “spontaneous and ready to change your plans,” and be prepared to go with people and places when invited by locals. It’s all an experience.
That’s what traveling is all about whether you are reading or stepping onto new earth or a place that you haven’t seen before.
Create memories. Julie says it perfectly, memories, that’s the one thing that can’t be taken from you when you travel.
To tickle your traveling feet, check out the travel questions at the back of the book to ask yourself and your friends about their favorite destinations, where they like to shop, and where they dream of going. Also, be fashionable and travel in style by following the address book of the more than 100 fashion designers’ favorite places to stay, shop, and visit around the world included at the end of the book too.
American Fashion Travel: Designers on the Go. Diane von Furstenberg. 143 pages. Assouline. Hard Cover and Coffee Table Book. $29.25.
To book your Fashionable Vacation, contact Heather Cassell at Girls That Roam Travel at Travel Advisors of Los Gatos at 408-354-6531at or .
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