Exciting half-term trip to Italy for our Food and Textiles students

Students studying Textiles and Food enjoyed an exciting excursion to Rimini in Italy to start the half-term holiday in style. All the girls took part in an Italian lesson on their first day.

Our host, Vanna, took our 13 Textiles students to visit AEFFE GROUP (a fashion house with various famous fashion brands) in San Giovanni in Marigano.

The secretary of the president, Lisa, introduced them to their concept and talked about their well-known brands; MOSCHINO, ALBERTA FERRETTI, Lorenzo Serafini and Jeremy Scott.

After that, they had a tour in their fashion house where our girls had a fantastic opportunity to see first hand all the exciting processes that designing and making a fashion garment entails. 

The girls learnt how important technology is in the modern fashion and textiles industry and how different machinery, like plot cutters and digital printers, are used in fabric cutting and printing.

Lisa also showed us an example of a jacket from the forthcoming Moschino collection of ‘Picasso’, inspired by the famous art work of the painter, Picasso. 

Meanwhile, Food students visited Villa I Tramonti and had a real hands-on experience making tagliatelle from scratch, which they then ate for lunch. Our students soaked up some glorious sights, food and sunshine during their Italian tour. They visited Rimini and San Merino, and on Wednesday they headed to Gradara Castle for a tour, following lunch in a seafront restaurant, where they enjoyed seafood risotto, whitebait and prawn skewers.

The following day, while the Textiles group went to tour Gilmar, the Food group went to San Patrignano. There, in an amazing restaurant, they had lessons in cooking and tasting from the Head Chef and a tour of the kitchen areas, equipment and important local ingredients. Both groups enjoyed a gastronomic lunch; amuse-bouche, a twice baked risotto with seafood ragu, followed by roast cuttlefish salad with black olives, a locally produced goat's cheese and petit fours with coffee.

They then toured the historical monuments of Rimini, including the ancient roman bridge, and managed to fit in some free time for shopping.

It was an inspiring trip for all our girls, who left Italy brimming with enthusiasm and ideas to take back to St Mary's.