Berlin Fashion Week: Day 2
January 20
When I'm really "doing" a fashion week, especially in a city that is not my home city, my favourite time of day is breakfast. Since I'm a blogger but not a party person, this is the time of day that I do my best work and get my act together. I unpack my bulging bag of all the various printed ephemera I accrued the day before, sort through my schedule and try to figure out how to get where I need to get, finish up illustrations and scan them, and of course edit images and try to write something coherent.I have no idea how people do the parties and work at the same time. I like the daytime scene so much better than the night time scene. I like the clarity and the sense that I'm surrounded by people who are working. Open bars are an occupational hazard in this business, though. Here at Berlin Fashion Week, unlimited amounts of free wine and beer are available literally from 10 a.m.
The drawing on the table is one of my favourites of the week so far, because it is a souvenir of successful self-improvement. I made a New Year's resolution this year to be more outgoing, always to be the first to introduce myself. I arrived early at the Schmidttakahashi show on Wednesday, and while I was drinking my complimentary German beer, I noticed someone else sitting by himself waiting, so I invited him over. Turns out he's an illustrator too and his studio is next door to the designers. He's half French and he's interested in clichés. We've never been to each other's countries, so he drew a Canadian and insisted I draw a Frenchman. The funniest part was that this Frenchman was wearing the exact same shoes as my caricature. Clichés, eh?