KEY POINTS:
The crowd was ready for a love-in as Yvonne Bennetti's blingy show hit the runway in front of the week's highest wattage crowd at Fashion Week.
From toe-tapping to Meatloaf, through Billy Idol via Kowloon's finest dressmakers, we saw it all.
Cigarette pants and military-style jackets with gold braid, a cashmere camel coat with giant Gucci-style gold snaffle toggles, beautiful black guipure lace over lilac slips, orange wool coats with lace hems, Astrakhan, flokati fringing and ostrich feathers - we saw it all.
Giant beaded straps held up slip-me-off dresses, an eau de nil cashmere coat said society maven and a white leopard fake-fur bomber shrieked society slapper.
Love was the theme, said designer Yvonne Murphy backstage. And yes, there was probably something for everyone who likes putting on the glitz. Me, I liked a chrome yellow tiered flirt dress trimmed with crystals that screamed red carpet and a simple flute-pleated purple georgette dress.
Not so nice to see another model hobbling, all but in tears, towards the show's end in the day's killer heels. Think two sizes two big, too many centimetres too tall and 50-odd metres of unforgiving runway to get down after three-days of blister-inducing parades.
Luckily for Bennetti, this came late in the show, which made the final event of the night, Zambesi's much-anticipated off-site show run late in an inner-city warehouse. Twice the crowd, and darkly cool, but anything but depressing, as befits the label.
Lots of leather, cocooning cape wraps, quilted detailing, black and charcoal suiting with Cosack styling, butterscotch knits and trawler net (think giant fish net) baggy singlets in leather abd green fur. Two prints, one psychelic, one Aztec style, equals one sure style from designer Elisabeth Findlay and then a big after-party.
And the models, no doubt thankfully, wore patent leather gumboots.
For Annah Stretton, footwear incidents did distract from a nicely-themed collection from the Matamata designer who has retail outlets across the country and whose kooky, colourful clothes appeal to women of a certain age looking to inject some attitude into their look.
Stretton herself has it in spades, from the Harajuku-coloured hair and a driven, business-like attitude that has slowly seen her win respect for finding her market.
She took Japan as her theme: models wore net cropped leggings and tops printed with an orange, blue and green Yakuza-style tattoo print and many of her clothes featured a fish-scale petalling detail and even chrysanthemum patterns.
Colours were mostly strong, next season's teal and orange, last's cobalt blue, but a nude and khaki knit-suit combo was delicate and metallics featured in some vertical scales slinky down full-length fitted dresses.
A feathered piece de resistance skirt was all but overlooked during one of the unfortunate moments with the lethal heels, but its intricacy will be worth further inspection.
Too many of the day's shows felt like a rehash of the Emperor's new clothes. A mash-up of the season's trends - tie-dye, paint-splashed and acid-wash fabrics, tartan, paisley, fur and leather - some unfortunately twinned with last season's puffball hems and metallics, and underneath it all, nothing much to wear, but derivative, dull shapes.
At times it felt like designers had bought fabric by the bolt and cut it among them. The same murky plaid with a purple wash, the same red tartan, the same red wet-look and the same acid wash denims.
The trends can be turned to good effect for streetwear - and who am I to deny a new generation a punk moment. Hamilton-based Nyne did it well with some strong sleeveless anorak hoodies with a shirt-tail hem, acid-wash ribbed leggings, and doubled-up singlets.
At Salasai the paint-wash was fresh in a grey print splashed with brown, cobalt and cream, leather worked well in a crop bomber and acid-wash was ruched into a front-zip pencil skirt. The inspiration was tribal but the look was urban street.
Lonely Hearts took things on, with their op-shop grunge girls looking fresher than the pretend punks - the same leather, lace and checks, but more cunningly combined with cute knit skull caps and chunky knits.
Chiffon tier-skirts were twinned with mohair jumpers and tweed was given a twist. Even with rugby-style headgear, the models were delicately pretty, inspired by Courtney Love in a together phase - dishevelled, lost but definitely not tragic.
It was a carnival freak show at Michael Pattison, cue a clown on stilts with Joker makeup, a midget on a scooter and a pierced-faced sideshow host. And that was before the clothes came out, followed by the designer as ringmaster brandishing a whip, looking ready for action in a hardcore club. The women behind me enjoyed the show "awesome, wow, outstanding," but I bet they won't be able to remember the clothes.
Hard to forget the Viking's horn birdnest hair. I also noticed a too tight pencil skirt, men's pants with drop pockets and a good knit with a horizontal stripe. The dresses were forgettable and it's a shame that someone who can tailor didn't stick to his strengths.
Others to show in the Coco Ready to Wear Show were Ooby Ryn who did the denim and a paisley print and Sheryl May, to the sound of the Clash's London Calling. So that explained the cute tartan bib-front pinafore, but what about the dusky pink beaded dress and fur stoles?
At Basquesse, a petal-hemmed long black dress was impressively worked but too much else echoed Dynasty, which sadly brings us back to the 80s.
