Put your best frock forward

By JANETTA MACKAY

Frantic fittings and hem adjustments have been going on all over Auckland all weekend.

The Town Hall has been transformed into the biggest wardrobe in town and exhibition tents have turned Aotea Square into a mini industries fair ground.

Today is the moment of truth for 14 of the nearly 50 designer labels showing at L'Oreal New Zealand Fashion Week.

The event was officially launched last night, but the real action starts on the runway at 11am when the first group show, Style Pasifika, aims to give overseas buyers and media a taste of what modern New Zealand style is all about.

From the commercial to cutting-edge creative, design houses are banking on their clothes striking a chord.

By the end of the week organisers hope the invited guests will head home ready to spread the word that New Zealand may be small but it deserves its place on the international fashion map.

Managing director Pieter Stewart says the aim of Fashion Week is simple: "It's about increasing international sales, building New Zealand's profile as a fashion market and boosting job numbers across the board along the way."

An economic audit of this year's event, the third held, will size up its success, but the event has already carved a niche on the second tier of such international shows.

It will naturally never be up there with London, Paris, Milan or New York, but it's timed well for the trade calendar and was last year thought to have been responsible for $10 million of new orders.

Tim Gibson, chief executive of Government agency Trade and Enterprise, says the week "plays an important, strategic role in developing our designer fashion industry's future."

For those wondering how this happens, it's a giant trade fair with the publicity advantage of glamour.

While it's the big names who benefit most - designer Trelise Cooper this week credited the flow-on from Fashion Week 2002 with having just pushed her American wholesale clothing earnings near the $1 million mark - smaller businesses benefit too.

Buyers from Australia wandering round the trade tent were last year particularly taken with the possum fur exhibits. This year there are shoes, bags and accessories as well as apparel.

For up-and-coming designers, events such as Fashion Lab tomorrow include workshops on networking opportunities and building brands.

As for the clothes, will you want to wear them?

Inevitably it's the eye-catching rather than the everyday that catches the eye of photographers. But as well as the directional or just plain wacky, among those showing there will be names you recognise from fashion-conscious main street stores. Labels like Verge, High Society, Annah S, which make accessible apparel.

Some of the looks shown last year - admittedly in a way that not everyone would wear - have shown up in shops throughout the country. Narrower pants, more colour, deconstructed denim.

This year's shows are sure to bring the same kind of insight into what lies ahead for winter 2004. Interpreting the looks from designers such as Zambesi, World, Nom D, Nicholas Blanchet is all part of the fun.

Karen Walker has joined the local design stalwarts to show at home for the first time and rising stars such as Adrian Hailwood and Sharon Ng are set to surprise.

But from veteran designers like Barbara Lee, who specialise in classic elegance, to the 13-year-old Hawkes Bay schoolgirl behind the funky T-shirts of Ngati Babe there's clothes for everyone.

The runway is ready.

Hemlines

* APPAREL EXPORTS: Worth about $260 million a year, just short of the wine sector. Designer apparel makes up $40 million of this and is the fastest-growing segment of the sector. Considered a flagship ambassador for all apparel. Add in footwear and textiles and the total sector leaps to $355 million, just short of the film and IT industries.

* MARKETS: Of our apparel exports Australia takes 62 per cent, the US 16 per cent, UK per cent, followed by Hong Kong, edging out Japan.

* DOMESTIC MARKET: Sales of NZ-made clothing total around $746 million, with designer contributing $120 million of total.

* FASHION WEEK: Fashion Week has a crew of 140 models, 97 hairdressers, 36 makeup artists, 15 stylists, 40 dressers and scores of other backstage help. And that's just for shows at the Town Hall. Designers who stage their shows off-site wheel in truckloads more helpers.

Herald Feature: New Zealand Fashion Week

L'Oreal New Zealand Fashion Week official site