All Blacks hit the catwalk at Fashion Week

Andy Ellis is a pro. That much is immediately obvious. It's still a good hour before he'll have to take a terrifying stroll down the runway in his jocks in front of the good and the great of the Kiwi fashion world, but Ellis is already in his smalls.

His All Black teammates and sevens cousins have opted for team-issue trackies for the dress rehearsal. Ellis isn't mucking around, though.

"I thought I might as well get straight into character," he says backstage in the green room.

That's the sort of commitment that might make Ellis the third-string halfback when the All Blacks' World Cup squad is named on Sunday.

Ellis is on the bubble for selection. The suspicion is it will be popped by Tawera Kerr-Barlow, the main contender for his spot.

Poor bugger.

Whatever happens, he'll always have Fashion Week. So, too, fellow bubblers Hika Elliot and Malakai Fekitoa.

Bubbles, whether in champagne glasses, lager bottles or fringe All Blacks, are a bit of a theme at the Viaduct Events Centre. I'm ingesting a few as I write this. Dead set need them after sitting through my first fashion show.

Where I come from, a Huffer involves a can of spray paint and a plastic bag and hopefully not a call from the Fire Service. I'm a fashion eunuch, but I'm in good company with my footy-player chums all confirming they're either dressed by their partners or mothers or Steve Hansen.

As a sometime sports writer, I'm no stranger to being backstage with half-naked men so it's not the thrilling assignment you might imagine.

A colleague has helpfully suggested I bond with the models by going along to the show in my undies. Screw that. I'm still scarred from sitting poolside in my Speedos next to Kiwis league star Jason Taumalolo at a Townsville hotel three years ago.

And Fekitoa doesn't need me to make him look good in the latest range of Jockeys. He's got that well covered, trust me.

The All Blacks aren't the only megastars to grace the catwalk this week. Art Green was here on Wednesday, and him I have heard of.

There's a good chance I'll end up wearing some of it when it reaches the shelves at Dress-Smart in three years, so I am actually a little interested in the clobber being displayed by models who seem to be doing their best impressions of mannequins who've just seen a relative melt to death in a department store fire.

Colin reckons we're heading back to the 80s.

"That means short, short - and shorts - for men. Men have great legs, so why not? I personally like a hairy leg," he's said.

Here's praying Colin's wrong. I can still remember the day in 1982 when my short shorts were a touch too short on a class trip to Picton.

Pretty sure most of my classmates can, too, especially the one who pointed out the bits my shorts weren't covering.

Perhaps that's why they invented tighter boxer shorts.