Confessions of a Fashion Week Victim

BiCurious George knew this very well, having organised shows at the previous two Fashion Weeks. She tried to tell me and I didn't doubt her tales of delayed shows, pushy... everyone and few enough opportunities to be fabulous, but it takes day after day of disappointment sneaking up from every corner to really appreciate just how overrated Fashion Week is.

Nonetheless! After tearing our hair out for days trying to put together normal-enough outfits from our extensive fetish wardrobes, BiCurious George and I put on our media passes, our fakest smiles, our cutest shoes (bar one special pair, held in reserve for a worthwhile occasion, or at least a day with an after party) and descended from our rock ‘n' roll world of stylish decadence and abandonment to a world where we weren't the most cynical or harshest judges of outfits - by a long shot.

Our first day made several things clear immediately: That the booze was too expensive for us to buy ourselves (Beer $8, Wine $10 etc); that there were too many models hanging around for us to be bought drinks; that it was incredibly easy to get into any show if you have a media pass and are willing to stand; that going into standing (also known as "scamming a GA", GA being a General Admission ticket) didn't mean you wouldn't end up with a seat; that the good goody bags were reserved for the front couple of rows; that the clothes weren't going to be any better than they ever were, which is somewhere between "Hey, that piece isn't too bad" and "I'm embarrassed for the model...s"; and that the hair and makeup sections of the next issues of every NZ fashion mag are going to be hilarious, ugly and messy.

Luckily we ran into an ex-magazine editor friend of BiCurious George (who will not be identified for future party times' sake) who declared it was time to find us some free drinks. "I'd really be losing it if I couldn't get a free drink at Fashion Week," he put it. All it takes is an assured smile and an entitled bearing to get into a VIP room these days, it seems, and we were quickly being offered cold, tasty beverages by smiling blonde PR women. Success! We approached the Nom*D show with smiles on our faces and two stashed cans of Stella in BiCurious George's bag. Which was a good thing too, as it shut the bitch up during the long, cold, painful high heeled hobble back to the car.

We were better prepared for Day 2 having taken all of this on board and lowered any expectations we may have had. No longer was this about going to Fashion Week - it was about having as much fun at Fashion Week as we could. Newcomer whiz kid and darling of the overseas fashion media Alex Jaeha seemed to want to thwart us before we had even started, scheduling his show in the Vector Arena at 9.30am. Not impressed, as rock ‘n' rolling had taken precedence over sleep the evening before. I set my alarm early with all the best intentions; fielded a call from an irate BiCurious George at around lunchtime; and finally made it to Stolen Everythings Club in an odd out of the way warehouse which happened to be not too far from The Midnight Rock ‘n' Roll Circus Tent (aka ‘our flat') around 9pm that evening.

Stolen Everythings have made their name as party boys, throwing the biggest bashes around to sweeten public opinion. Mini, the sponsor they scandalously stole from Lonely Hearts last Fashion Week, had kindly done the work of overturning their display car for us. And lo, some canny PR-meister had filled the underside with beer! We located and carefully guarded a stash table as the drinks were going quick and commenced our dissection of the show. Our general consensus was that the collection had been made by three very excited 17-year-old post-punk/goths given a rudimentary sewing kit and the run of a large second hand clothing store with the brief of making a runway collection. Props went to rock ‘n' roll stylist Karen Inderbitzen-Waller for doing the best she could with a mountain of tulle, plaid, leopard print (in both normal colouring and black-and-red), dark denim, heart motifs and clichés.

"Are you coming to Lonely Hearts tomorrow," Karen asked? Of course we were! I had been invited and BiCurious George could always be trusted to make her way past security using whatever means necessary when she had a worthwhile goal in sight. Arriving at the show the next day we breezed past the big burly man asking for tickets who saw our media passes and invited us, "This way ladies." Walking past the table of Stella cans and Frank bottles (grabbing several of each, of course) we were delighted to oblige the nice man who asked us to take a seat as quickly as we could. Whittakers Dark Chocolate Slabs (King Size) made uncomfortable cushions but proved invaluable for keeping blood sugar levels up as we waited for the show to start. A rather less nice man came along and made the two rows behind us stand and BiCurious George and I exchanged guilty grins as sponsors clutching nice looking MAC gift bags filed in behind us. Aaah, this was what Fashion Week was all about indeed.

We were enjoying a cigarette and a Stella next to one of the few gas heaters some kind soul had thought to provide just after the show when Carmel Pritchard, Lonely Hearts designer, walked up. BiCurious George sickeningly gushed "That was wonderful! That was so good," bending down in her 6 ½" heels to hug Carmel, who extricated herself and moved off with a "Thankyou! I'm so glad you liked it." Barely had we finished exchanging Good-God-We're-Cool looks with each other than Anika Moa looked over, recognised socialite George and the schmoozing started again. Yes, I'm shamelessly name dropping. There is more to come too, biaches, so get used to it.

More to come very soon, actually, and oh look! It's now. The sun was going down and the wind chill around the harbour was crippling, so I cursed BiCurious George's popularity as we stopped once again to greet Alex Jaeha, aforementioned young darling of New Zealand fashion and one time bar tender, which is how George had gotten her meaty hooks into him. She had the class to blame me for our inattendance at his show the day before, which didn't stop me from charming him sufficiently to get his number. "To organise an interview" of course. Speaking of which, watch this space...

My hangover thanked every designer and PR agency who had chosen to neglect to invite me to their Friday show, meaning I was free to recover sufficiently for the Coco PR after party that evening held in a motorboat warehouse in Freemans Bay. George FM supplied the AWFUL tunes, Canadian Club supplied some terrible RTDs and the outfits of cold, awkward looking girls supplied the entertainment. It was another case of hoard-the-free-beer and guard-the-couch as we marvelled at the ability of so many women to look confused about why their outfits felt wrong while maintaining wilful blindness to the fact that they were wearing OPEN TOED SHOES WITH STOCKINGS. Seriously, this was all through fashion week, though worst here. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU ALL?!?!?! *Cough* Sorry.

To sum up Fashion Week for the student, all that can be said is this: if you can find some way of going, go on then. There is a lot of fun to be had as long as you have absolutely no expectations and are willing to risk being exposed for the greedy, cavalier freeloader you have to be to have a good time. But if you can't, you're not missing out on much. Even - in fact, especially - if you like fashion. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy Fashion Week though - activities include getting raucously drunk and sitting outside, heckling the fashion victims in their Vogue Italia rip-off Mi Piachi platforms attempting to navigate the 45° pavement down Halsey St; grabbing a friend and wandering through the crowd with one of you pretending to be a grovelling PR fuckerino who has fuckerinoed up, the other shrieking at the top of their lungs in a Russian accent about being seated in the second row and how heads will literally roll for this; even setting up a foot massage stall in the vicinity for a couple of extra bucks (and you can rummage in those huge Mary Poppins sacks the hoi polloi call handbags these days while they're distracted), as long as you can stand the stench of abused feet squeezed out from too-small open toed stiletto boots... Good luck with that.

So there you have Fashion Week, dear readers, or at least the bits I thought would interest you. Oh yeah, and bla bla bla plaids/tartan, early 90's grunge, layers, tulle, bustiers, tye dye and dip dye, acid wash, tight leather, fetish shoes, chunky knitwear, d rings and bondage straps, shirt dresses yet again, bla bla bla.