Today we had our second pre-researched company visit to the Milan Textile Center. But before that, we all had lunch together at Pizzeria 40, which was probably the most overwhelming lunch I've had yet. They gave us a whole bunch of appetizers: bread, bruschetta, and meat and cheese platters. This meal was also the only time I had pizza in the form of a slice instead of a whole pie. Also, this pizza was the thickest pizza I had ever seen in my life. My pizza was called the "Italy," and it had tomatoes and spinach on it. Like most of the food I've had on this trip, it was really good but it was just too much for me to finish.
After lunch, we headed to the Milan Textile Center, a consortium for different companies to rent or buy space and products, i.e. textiles and apparel. They don't make the products themselves, but they sell them to retailers. The company carries over 160 different brands. The company representative talked about the current challenges of the fashion industry in Italy, like how fast fashion (H&M and Zara) often trumps all other competition and that Chinese production is quickly matching the quality of Italian production. He also mentioned how Italian fashion is different from US fashion; he said that it seems like the US always either dresses really elegantly or very sporty, whereas Italy just keeps it semi formal all the time. It was really interesting to hear this and see how people from other countries viewed our fashion.
After our company visit, we had the rest of the day to ourselves. A bunch of us used this free time to walk the steps of the Milan Duomo. On the way up, we were wondering out loud if we should count how many steps we walked, when some people on their way down told us "don't even bother." They made it out to be like the walk was gonna be awful, but it actually wasn't that bad, and the view was beautiful. I gotta admit, it wasn't as nice as the view of Florence, but it was still really pretty. It was in this moment that I understood why Milan is called the New York City of Italy, the skyline looks so modern and sophisticated. Not only did we get a cool view of the city, but we got to see the architecture of the Duomo up close and personal.
After hiking the Duomo steps, we took the metro to the canals. They kinda looked like what I picture Venice to be like, but I've never been to Venice, so I can't say for sure if it really looked like Venice. On either side of the water were tons of shops and restaurants. Since it was happy hour, we did an aperitivo for dinner, and a lot of us also got gelato afterwards.
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