Tour de Couture
"Tour de Couture" is a travel series that documents the globetrotting tales of an unconventional adventuress. Join Nicole Reina as she pursues her lifelong passion for wanderlust, artfully presenting fashion, architecture, culture, and historic preservation from around the world.
Nicole Reina has been travelling since the age of 5 and her passion for globetrotting has steadily grown since. Besides the joy and exhilaration she gets from exploring a new city or going on an exotic adventure, Nicole also travels for a purpose.
“I travel in search of fashion inspiration from around the world.” -Nicole Reina
Alongside her lifelong passion for travel, Nicole’s love of fashion, especially vintage fashion, is evident. She has a deep admiration for different cultures and their unique aesthetic and style and this is one of the main drives behind her voyages around the world.
On a deeper level, I’m inspired by the way fashion portrays cultures, customs, and traditions. Buildings may fall and stories may be forgotten, but oftentimes, the heritage of a civilization remains preserved through time-honored dress.
— Nicole Reina
Another motivator for Nicole is the nostalgia and heavy connection she feels to a particular era, often referred to as late modernism. These decades represent a time in the history of the world that is both melancholic and hopeful. After experiencing and enduring two World Wars, much of the globe was cooperating in an effort to ensure that such devastation and destruction doesn’t occur again. Many countries were rebuilding their destroyed nations and hope for the future, an embrace of modernity, and a new direction towards international connection was baked into the time.
This was the era Nicole grew up being influenced by - an era that would not forget the tragedies that occurred, but would rebuild with a new attitude and a firm commitment to peace and prosperity for all.
“As I reflect back, ever since an early age, I felt a deep connection to the 1950s and ‘60s. I grew up watching the television shows from that time period, all of which portrayed a very wholesome and nurturing quality within society and family matters. That simplicity and old-time honesty reflects in the era’s influential fashion and architectural aesthetic.” -Nicole Reina
From every ending, new beginnings can emerge and in many of these destroyed countries, the modern aesthetic took hold. Architecture, art, fashion, and the design behind it all reflected and represented this change in style and attitude - cultures borrowing from other cultures as a result of a broken, but open world.
A perfect example of this shift can be seen in Japan as the country recovered from World War II and the subsequent Allied occupation, going through the transition of becoming a more liberal, democratic, and modern society as a result.
Within Japan, there’s a remarkable balance between tradition and innovation, not only represented in fashion trends, but also in their robust technological progress. With a culture based on tradition and reverence, it is truly unique how both old and new always seem to find a way to coexist.
— Nicole Reina
It makes perfect sense that Nicole’s favorite hotel in the entire world is part of this country’s history and represents so many of the aspects of design that she admires and adores. Tour de Couture begins here.
