KEY POINTS:
There is a great sense of unreality in trudging down Halsey St in trainers. Dirty aquamarine adidas on Halsey simply do not compute. It will forever be associated in my mind with the clip-clop of unsuitable shoes, the self-important swing of a media lanyard and the pleasant weight
of a brace of goodie bags, physical embodiments of my ANZFW experience.
I've spent the past four years as a delegate, reporting on Fashion Week for one or another of a variety of media outlets; a ticket to ride that has occasioned me experiences ranging from the aesthetically exciting to the downright unprintable.
My first Fashion Week I recall as a mere jumble of colours and noise and nonsense. In my first year at a new job I was shocked to be invited to lots of shows. I went to everything, obviously and cemented my student radio credentials by getting completely trashed at the Little Brother show/free for all. I ended up at karaoke and woke up at 11am in a strange house with two light beers in my shoe.
My sophomore year was rather more restrained, or maybe the parties weren't as wild. Except for Nom*D which went off in the late lamented St James theatre.
Last year, as a proper grown up with an honest to God deadline, the whole affair took on more of an aspect of endurance. Listening to hopelessly deluded members of the fashion pack bemoaning the lack of front row seats and diamond shoes got to be too much hard work by the end of Day 4. Luckily there was the poppy lift of the Stolen Girlfriends show to lend a bit of heart to the affair. That and the drunken catfight at Huffer.
And so we come to ANZFW 2008, and that familiar sense of anticipation and apprehension that characterises The Week Before. For all our studied jadedness ("I'm not really into it this year, aye", "It's not even a big deal anymore, it's a bit mickey mouse this year, aye"), slowly, we start to get excited.
It's the invites that do it, two weeks out and they start to arrive, a steady trickle of ornate oversized envelopes with your name in fancy font on the front.
They're too exciting to ignore. So you start your RSVPing, and the diary begins to fill up, and suddenly somehow it's looking like a week. This is the point, when, if you're unfortunate enough to work outside the fashion industry, you start doing the math, weighing up one night against the other in order to chose the optimum morning for a sickie (tip: make it the morning after Nom*D, those Dunedin cats get wild). If you do work in fashion, you're probably swooning from the effort it takes to read this, so fully subsumed are you in your usual pre-Fashion Week diet/medication/grooming regime. It's laughable isn't it, all the frantic work that goes on just for one 10-minute burst of gorgeousness. And that's just the journalists.
What's to look forward to this year? Well aside from the usual catfights, carousing, drinking, sniping, flirting, lipsticking and necking beroccas every morning as we head into yet another day of high level peacocking and self-absorption, there might also be the clothes.
Much has already been made of the absence of Kate Sylvester this year. But hey, guess what babes? World's back! Yay! Which is clearly what the organisers are hoping we'll be thinking right now, having announced the triumphant return of Auckland's most successful jesters to the FW line-up. The glitz and glam and rhinestone silliness of World might be just the antidote to these angst-ridden times.
They're opening the show in the Big Tent and, having never seen a World show, I for one will be hoping for a three-ring circus come Monday morning.
Who'll be this year's Jaeha? Jaeha probably. The perennially cheerful Alex has grown both his confidence and his profile since last year's galvanising debut, and there's every reason to believe this year's show will have just as much, if not more to offer. There's a bit of a buzz about Juliette Hogan as well (if only for the rugs at this stage), and Deadly Ponies look like following last year's dry ice and haunted forest extravaganza with some more good, mad fun. And an off-site Zambesi show is always an event.
Then there's the booze. The 10am hooch infusion that everyone complains about, but secretly loves, should go down easier this year at least, with Moet replacing Deutz. Only the whiniest, most solipsistic of the fashion crowd could complain about that. They will of course. They always do. And even though I'll listen through gritted teeth to their crazy non-existent dramas, and probably catch myself talking the same old utter rubbish, I'll enjoy it, just as I'll enjoy swapping smelly trainers for silly high heels. Jogging past, with just a week left to go, already the white marquees are standing proudly erect, their white canopies billowing. All is in order, we're almost ready to go.
