Sometimes study abroad feels like I’m living someone else’s life. Someone far more fabulous than I. As I type this article, I’m sitting in a café that I can’t pronounce the name of sipping a double espresso and contemplating cakes I can only describe as decadent.
Recently, I had the opportunity go to go Vienna Fashion Week…talk about living the good life. A friend from home was visiting his cousin in Vienna a few weeks ago and Emily (also HC Bowdoin writer) and I went to visit them. As it turned out, his cousin is big in the nightclub world of Vienna and involved in everything that is cool in that city (ok, hyperbole, but he was cool). His cousin invited us back for fashion week, and how could we turn that down? We spent the next week stressing about what to wear, as the shopping in Prague is surprisingly awful unless you can spring for Valentino. After some outfit shuffling and several trips to Top Shop and H&M, we settled on outfits.
Fashion week was amazing. There are no other words to describe it. We got press passes to sit in the second row for a few shows, got to go to several VIP parties with party favor goodie bags, and an endless supply of flavored water. And free water is a huge deal in Europe. The shows were much more versatile than I expected. The clothes ranged from dirty “derelicte”- inspired scraps of fabric to fun 1940s Bahamas themed swimsuits and lamé pants.
One show started out with a heartbeat soundtrack with a male model dragging a big bundle. Then a dancer emerged from the bundle and started dancing around the runway. One of the shows featured eye-masks and eye-patches, which were upwards of 100 Euro a pop…and one of our friends bought one, just because.
The after party on Saturday night was at a club in the outskirts of Vienna called Pratersauna, which is regarded to be the best club in Europe. And it lived up to its reputation. Despite the fact that my feet were punishing me for having worn heels for over 13 hours straight, I had an amazing time at probably the coolest place I’ve ever been in my life surrounded by designers, models, and European celebrities. One of the VIP rooms in the club had a pool in it and people dancing everywhere to different DJs with different styles of music in each room. There were outdoor pools, indoor pools and even a party in the (not working) sauna room. Like I said, my life is not cool enough to feature a weekend like this one.