Fashion Week: All stitched up (part IV)

Trelise Cooper with one style from her new range of sunglasses. Picture / Carolyn Robertson

Trelise Cooper adds another fashion accessory to the must-have list

It's the week of the launch for Trelise Cooper. After successfully launching her lingerie line on Monday, the designer launched her eyewear range yesterday. There are 12 different styles of sunglasses selling for $199 and 15 types of readers at $79.95 in the collection.

"One pair of sunglasses is not enough for me. We've priced them at a point where women can have a pair for every mood and every outfit," says Cooper.

Tired of wearing readers under her sunglasses she decided to design her own. Cooper ended up with a mix of colourful glasses and the fashion editor's colour of choice - black. They're in Trelise Cooper stores, Sunglass World, selected gift stores and optometrists now.

Ngati Fashionista

The Westfield Style Pasifika show had a whanau feeling, with a host of Maori and Pacific identities both in the crowd and on the runway. MPs, including Georginas Beyer and te Heuheu were watching, while the likes of Stacey Daniels, April Ieremia and dancing former All Black Norm Hewitt and show-mate Shane Cortese modelled to smooth Pacific grooves.

The show is a highlight for internationals, who also enjoyed a haka that included Hewitt. We just wish he'd shown his heels.

Hard landing

Fashion people do have feelings. The plight of 600 or so soon-to-be-jobless workers from the event's main sponsor, Air New Zealand, did not go unmentioned in the airline's corporate hospitality area. Champagne and the dole queue make for uncomfortable bedfellows.

In what was to have been a showcase week for the airline with its new uniform launch and then Fashion Week, the job losses among its engineers were like a bumpy return to the real world.

Silver service

Vintage authority and VIP delegate Cameron Silver was the guest speaker at the Catwalk Club luncheon yesterday at the Hilton.

He packed four of his favourite vintage frocks in his luggage and shared them with a select gathering of 250 guests.

No one famous has worn the gowns yet. But the Hollywood insider is confident it's only a matter of time before the likes of Nicole Kidman or Nicole Richie comes calling.

The peppermint jersey dress by French designer Loris Azzaro featured a cobweb diamante motif. Silver bought the Azzaro archive five years ago and has re-established the brand, making it contemporary again.

It retails for US$2200 ($3140).

Christian Dior's 1950s black wool crepe cocktail dress with taffeta flower and ruffle cascade is one of Silver's favourites.

What I think is so amazing about this dress is that it's more than 50 years old but completely contemporary.

With a red carpet dress it's not just about how a dress looks coming into the camera but what it looks like walking away from it.

Silver estimates he'd get US$2800 for the Dior in his Los Angeles vintage store, Decades.

The early '60s rust Valentino haute couture gown with mother of pearl and coral beaded bodice had a peek-a-boo back. It was worth the most, Silver said, because every stitch was done by hand.

To buy a contemporary couture gown like this today would cost US$80,000. The vintage number can be yours for a mere US$10,000.

Bob Mackie's early '80s goddess-style gown has a jewel keyhole and straps and a ruched bust.

It's everything that's happening in contemporary eveningwear right now. I bought it from an elderly San Francisco socialite who had the most incredible collection of couture. She'd held on to them for years and, amazingly, could still fit into them.

But the size 10 New Zealand mannequin couldn't.

Mantilla massacre

Mantilla-wearing blogger Diane Pernet interviewed Academy Award-winning costume designer Ngila Dickson yesterday for an installation she's doing in Barcelona and Vienna on 15 great influences of costume in film and television.

By all accounts, sitting behind a towering mantilla is not so bad. Although one B-rower plonked behind her joked about getting the chainsaw out, she found it was quite sheer so visibility could be maintained. Which just goes to show you can't make a mountain out of a mantilla.

That smug feeling

Fashion Week's big cheese, Pieter Stewart, is so ahead of the rest of the fashion pack that she was seen looking fabulous in the front row at Yvonne Bennetti in an aqua and red printed silk trench that was from the same winter '06 collection Bennetti was showing at the time. Snap.