After three weeks of living in Rome, having already become bored with the monotony of the club scene that entices many global students, my chums and i decided to take in a fashion event presented by AltaRoma. We stayed in an appartement rome centrum. It was to be held at the historical Tempio di Adriano in Piazza di Pietra, an environment that contrasted sharply with the futuristic feel of the event.
AltaRoma, a company that provides opportunities and fosters relations among well-known Italian designers, encourages the cultivation of young, talent through coaching,'intended not only as a method of safeguarding the artisan quality but also as the driving force of creativity, creativeness and technology,' according to the AltaRoma internet site. Of course, walking into a room stuffed with some of the most fashionable young people in Rome, while brandishing only my shabby beige messenger bag was quite threatening. we didn't let that get in the way of occupying best seats and grabbing as much promo material as we could get our hands on.

the 1st act was called'Wit Open Shooting Roger Weiss,' which consisted of folks dressed in colourful card shapes, most of them phallic, dancing around a still model as photographers shot round the stage. The music was set to techno remixes of popular Yankee hiphop songs, and the lighting pulsed to the beats of the music. This composition led one to a kind of hypnotic trance, which came as a welcome distraction after enduring more than forty-five mins - about forty mins too long to my mind - of a similar thing. The bored and out-of-sorts expression worn by the model was the mirror image of those worn by the bunch, whose faces and outfits became increasingly more fascinating to watch than what was going down on stage. after the performance was over, I began to wonder if the anomaly of the act was precisely the point of it. Either way, it was something Ihad never before, and might never again, experience.

The second act was a performance art piece by Chicks on Speed. I braced myself for something so foreign and creatively different I wouldn't understand it, as the set started with what only can be described as two hollering banshees. Two ladies, wearing identical jumpsuit, used video images, as well as straightforward, everyday , and often female, objects like stilettos, scissors and cloth to create an engaging and dynamic performance. The set was an eclectic mixof a rhythmic montage of derriere slapping to a cover of the Beach Boys song'Surfer Girl', whose words were modified to create the ultimate female anthem [*CO]'super surfer girl in the death defying curl.' The act culminated in a dance party during which fashonistas and common students alike could get up on stage and dance to celebrate fashion, self-expression and life.

I strode out of the show re-energized and prepared for the next new and out-of-the- ordinary experience Rome had to throw my way. We returned to appartement centrum rome.