Dress for excess: A guide to NZ Fashion Week

An outfit from Adrian Hailwood's autumn/winter 2007 collection.

You should be familiar with the New Zealand Fashion Week drill by now. A bunch of fashion designers show their winter collections to assembled buyers and media.

Of course, the Air New Zealand-sponsored event is a much-anticipated spectacle and boosts the economy, but most importantly we get to find out what we'll be wearing next winter.

Here are 20 more things you should know about the week.

1. The sixth New Zealand Fashion Week officially kicks off at 5.30pm on September 18, followed by the launch party for Vote Karen Walker Eyewear, the designer's latest sunglass collection.

That's all she could manage this year, as she's showing at New York Fashion Week three days earlier.

All up, there are 33 shows from 48 labels, not including the Deutz Fashion Design and AUT Rookie shows. The venue is 135 Halsey St, Viaduct Harbour.

2. ANZFW 4 U. Although the shows are trade only, there are many ways to be part of the week. Saturday is the dedicated public day with live music from bands such as the Mint Chicks, Electric Confectioneers, the Tutts and Motocade; a catwalk coverage video room showing highlights of the week; and hair and makeup seminars by L'Oreal.

There are also designer selection shows, which have some of the picks of the week's fashion viewed the best way possible - on the runway. These shows also run during Fashion Week if you can't wait until Saturday. Tickets range from $25 for an all-day pass , to the NZFW4U gold elite at $80. This buys something money usually can't - front row seating at a designer selection show and a special goodie bag, as well as other treats. Tickets are from Ticketek.

3. Fashionably late is not something New Zealand Fashion Week can be accused of. Instead of being the usual third week in October, organisers decided to bring it forward a month to maximise sales and profile in target markets. Which means it's happening exactly the same time as London Fashion Week. Hence the lack of Brits coming - not that they came in droves anyway, but the occasional presence of a Hilary Alexander or Colin McDowell was always welcome.

4. It's not like the Brits spent much money either - it's Australia that buys most of our clothes. According to New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Australia takes 71 per cent of our apparel exports. In the year to June 2005 that earned a whopping $225.4 million. Britain accounted for 6.9 per cent. And while the Asian market isn't huge - Hong Kong at 2 per cent and Japan at 1.9 per cent - Fashion Week has great hopes for the region and has targeted it accordingly.

5. This way to the bun fight. During the public day, there's going to be a designer garage sale. Paul Blomfield, who is organising the onsite event, has modelled it on those held during London and New York fashion weeks and hopes it will be a pleasant experience. Frankly, anyone who's ever been to a garage sale knows all's fair when it comes to love and bargains. Being elbowed in the ribcage by fellow bargain hunters is not especially pleasant.

There will be more than $300,000 of fashion from Caroline Church, Doris De Pont, State of Grace, Petrena Miller, Moa, Sabatini, Caroline Sills, Euinton, Hailwood, Moochi, Federation, nzgirl, Sakagucci and leather goods outfit Cerissi up for grabs. It runs from 9am-6pm. No cheques but some credit cards are accepted. Entry is $10 on the door or included with Gold Elite tickets available from Ticketek.

6. Of the no-shows this year, we'll really miss Miss Crabb. Although Kristine Crabb's label was a bit of a non-event at its first outing at Fashion Week last year, it would be been great if she'd stuck it to us this year and proved just what a talented designer everyone knows she is. She wanted to conserve her energy for the month-long trip to Tokyo, London, New York and Los Angeles she's just come back from.

Lonely Hearts Club may have got rave reviews after its show last year, but was too busy relocating from Wellington to Auckland and opening its store Myhart to devote much time to anything else. The small consolation will be its installation in EEC Lighting for the duration of Fashion Week.

Also missing is Workshop, Helen Cherry, Insidious Fix, Angela Lewis, Barbara Lee, Sally Ridge's undies outfit james&august and, for the second year straight, World and Sabatini.

7. Some are out. Others are in. Project Runway host Heidi Klum will be the first to tell you that's the nature of fashion. Carlson is in again this year, even though Tanya Carlson's trademark dispute with Workshop and Helen Cherry owners Chris and Helen Cherry (who are out this year) to keep the name of her cool, young brand Cherry Cotton Candy isn't quite over. But that's not stopping her showing the range, as well as Carlson. It was one of the highlights of 2004.

And streetwear label Federation, who haven't shown for what seems like forever is back this year, as is Doris De Pont and Andrea Moore.

8. Fashion Week is a fulltime job for managing director Pieter Stewart. For more than six years she's been championing local fashion. Surely she's a little sick of the cheerleader role and would just like to lie around on her husband's boat?

"Not at all. There are moments, of course, but the challenges still make it fun," she says.

"I've met incredible entrepreneurial people around the world and the quiet achievers who really make waves in the industry. It's a great reason to get up and put your high heels and lipstick on."

9. The venue, the former America's Cup boat sheds and compounds , will scrub up okay, thanks in large part to Telco's Shelley McRae.

Her "make boat sheds beautiful" campaign involves specially commissioned Maori carvings by James Rickard of the Taheke Gallery, near Rotorua. He was keen to get involved after coming to the Style Pasifika show last year.

And the restaurant, appropriately called Fashion Plate (because contrary to witty "don't feed the models" refrains, fashion types do go looking for food) will be lined with black silk, illuminated with black chandeliers and divided from the bar by Japanese fringe screens.

And the bar won't be outdone, with Bisazza glass mosaic tiles and electric cloud lighting breathing across the roof.

10. Trelise Cooper has switched venues at the eleventh hour, moving from a large capacity tent to a secret location. Her shows will be produced by Michael Mizrahi, who was responsible for the last Louis Vuitton ball held during the America's Cup.

She's also thinking she may need more than the 20 models she'd booked for her two shows (the first for buyers and media and the second for associates and friends).

The big production shows feature around 500 garments (separate pieces not total outfits) from the Trelise Cooper, Cooper and Trelise Cooper Lingerie labels. She's also thinking about showing some of her Trelise Cooper Kids range for girls between 2-8. The warning to never work with kids doesn't wash with her. Her recent show for pint-sized Trelise-wearers went with few hitches. The power of lollipops.

11. The buzz about three senior US Vogue staff coming to NZFW has come to nothing. Instead, filling the front row will be Jason Campbell of The JC Report website, and people from Nylon, Sportswear International, Vogue Japan and Taiwan, Elle Japan, Collezioni Uomo, Paris Style.com, Korean Cosmopolitan and Korean TV.

The Aussie contingent includes: The Australian, Sunday Telegraph, Oyster, Russh, Ragtrader and Lino.

Buyers are mostly from Asia and Australia with a few coming from the US. Brooke Dulien and Emily Brandle from LA's White Trash Charms are coming. Dulien's other claim to fame is DJing with Kelly Osbourne.

On the up-side, it's looking like a mantilla-free zone this year, as anyone who had to sit behind last year's blogger Diane Pernet and her towering headpiece will be pleased to hear.

12. Many designers like to keep hush-hush about what they're going to show. But we've managed to get a few to talk - just a bit. Kate Sylvester's collection Wolf has a line of slouchy, oversized, knitted cardigans and jackets that, we're assured, look beautiful alongside immaculately-tailored separates.

Zambesi's Elisabeth Findlay was feeling the cold this winter as she worked on next winter's collection, so expect to see well-covered models. "There's even more black," she says.

Jimmy D's Everybody Loves Nobody Sometimes owes a debt to the raver and grunge looks of the early 90s with black, white, grey marl and brown on contrasting fabrics.

Cybele looks to medieval knights on horses and fire-breathing dragons, then takes a peek at pop art and 80s furniture designs. She comes up with Joan of Arc and Grace Jones as her muses. The range consists of bright red, yellow, electric blue, grey, black and metallic silver satin, leather, knit and denim pieces.

For The Effect of the Wind collection, Caroline Church turned to Wuthering Heights for her free-spirited, flushed cheek feel with the colours of the moors - emerald green, heathery mauve and accents of gold and blush.

Trelise Cooper is promising a "more austere and androgynous mix of masculine and feminine" involving black, white shirts, cigarette pants, empire lines, plunging necklines, puff sleeves and Elizabethan and Victorian outlines with formal men's suiting.

13. Sewing sounds as interesting as watching paint dry but if you pit celebrities against some AUT design students in a head to head race, things could get interesting. This spectator sport starts at 11am and finishes at 5pm during the ANZFW 4 U day. .

14. First rule of business: spend money to make money. For a designer to be part of a new generation show it costs $5500. It's $9000 for a group show and individual show prices range between $10,000-$19,000. That's for a show producer, dressers, ushers, lighting and the sound system - but not models, makeup artists and the rest.

On the subject of numbers, Fashion Week injects $33.06 million into the economy and not all of that is champagne, although it is expected that 18,000-20,000 drinks will be downed during the week.

15. The La Rue is the most-wanted bag of the season - more even than the Marc Jacobs Stam bag. You may not realise how wanted until you see The Devil Wears Prada when it's released in October - but it'll be too late to win one by then. It's the one costume designer Patricia Field dreamed up as the hot bag for the movie and is worn by the the character Andrea Sachs. There's one of only 12 signed by Field up for grabs. Anyone who has a Deutz piccolo during the week at ANZFW 4 U can enter.

16. Fresh talent. That's what the buyers and media are after, someone they can discover. Fashion Week first-timers include: Juliette Hogan, Jimmy D, Toushe, Ooby Ryn, Keucke, Charmaine Reveley, Serdoun, Docherty Wilkins, Firefly, Arabesque, Des Rusk, Beth Ellery, Jaimie Webster and MAW. At 23, Toushe lingerie designer Olivia Corbett is the youngest . She spotted a gap in the market for theatrical yet wearable fashion undergarments.

17. There's no cocktail hour during Fashion Week, but get along to Bellini at the Hilton and sample Claire Kingan-Jones' own little number, Solitaire. It won the annual designer cocktail competition. Or you could find your best glasses and whip one up at home. To make it: 45ml South gin, 15ml ginger liqueur, 45ml Ch'i & lychee syrup. Pour all ingredients into a martini glass, stir and serve.

18. Fur protesters may want to familiarise themselves with their target this time round. Last year they were so busy chanting "Pieter is a killer" they failed to notice the object of their protest when she slipped out of the venue past them, hopped into a car and arrived back 30 minutes later to walk past them a second time.

19. Now that we're reminiscing about Fashion Weeks past, we just love the story about the designer who wanted to use live lion cubs in her show but when OSH said she had to erect a three-metre fence round the runway, decided against it.

You might think the front row is wall-to-wall designer labels and amazing styling. Wrong. Sometimes, no matter how careful the Fashion Week crowd are at vetting journalists' credentials, they slip up. Turns out some international journos aren't even fashion writers. A visiting TV crew were sprung at one of the headline shows in polar fleece. Yuck. Where were the Fashion Police?

20. It's not over until Zambesi's show on Friday evening. The label has a show at Fashion Week every year.

It's a way to give something back to the industry, as well as being good for profile here, in Australia, and in the northern hemisphere, says designer Elisabeth Findlay.

"I've always loved doing shows. I just don't know what it would be like to not do a show. It's like a celebration for the work you do."

The only other labels to show every year are Nom*D, Trelise Cooper, Claire Kingan-Jones' various labels, Caroline Church (if you count when she was part of the State of Grace design duo) and Vamp.

They deserve a medal.