The Great Hall of Fashion

Chloe Graham photographed by Prue Ibbotson.

Home to Massey University’s fashion design school, the old Museum’s Great Hall was a fitting place to host Wellington’s first Fashion Week, with runway shows from 32 designers, established and emerging. From the gauzy, metallic bodices of Hermione Flynn through to the rich enveloping brocade of Liz Mitchell. 

Miss Abigail made sumptuous use of big, brassy materials in her wonderfully over-sized pale green shrug and velveteen used in a virtuoso display of flouncing. Lucy McIntosh’s soft mustard hues and garments almost like altar vestments, and the magnificent deconstructions of Jacque Shaw filled with stripes, layers, bands and gaps all shimmering with big jewellery like table settings.

The work of the makeup artists led us through the delicate, then into sweeps of tribal marking/war paint for the Taylor Boutique show, and on to the brilliance of sparkling, subtle eye work. Hair styling was also superbly crafted and ebullient. We fell to the charms of updated vintage techniques like schoolgirl pigtails to Renaissance-influenced tight braiding and 1930s buns and springy finger waves. 

Wellington Fashion Week was a big boost for the industry right across the board with people in related industries who like the Breakers, were given a chance to shine on their home court. Congratulations to Cameron Sneddon and the team who worked so hard to make this event a success.

Terence Hodgson

Wellington Style

Starfish

Retail does not exist without the replenishment from the designers, and our cool little style capital is home to some exceptional designers. The range of output is stupendous. It covers all bases from the avant garde art-performance-garments of Hermione Flynn to the delightful inventions of Starfish and the fluid silhouettes from Philippa & Alice. These designers export: both their garments and their design stories. Many Wellington designers regularly show in the long-established fashion shows of Dunedin, Auckland, Melbourne and New York. Their works are featured in the international press, both magazines and online, and many overseas boutiques make room for a showing of local labels. Such international applause is not given to the sleepy.

For established and emerging designers, Wellington’s being home to Massey University’s fashion design school is simply treasure, and many well-known names like Alexandra Owen have been through their courses. The school’s curriculum, access to professionals in the trade, and its annual show more than hint that this part of the economy has weight. The fashion school pinpoints Wellington as a destination where things are happening --  a fact supremely buttressed by the city also being host to the World of WearableArt competition and extravaganza.

Silence Was

So many factors support Wellington as a fashion hub, and this year’s Wellington Fashion Week will promote the city, the region, and all who take part in its exuberance. In particular, the week’s runway events will exhibit a number of new labels who, in spite of economic sluggishness, have emerged because they are driven by inspiration and accomplishment. 

The label Kelsey Genna, established last year, will show her work which is very limited (editions of ten), and predominantly sells online. We will get to see her trim use of mouth watering colours like berry fruits mixing with the peaceful marzipan shades of cream and pink. We will see Silence Was, established in 2011 with an emphasis on a romantic and bespoke tailoring ethic. And we will see Nouveau, a range from Pixel Ink which promotes an urban, street-wear graphic thrust – quite often eccentric and quizzical like their Tourist Box T-shirt showing a tui seemingly using an old Victorian bellows camera to take our photo. Wonderful.

Wellington Fashion Week

We love the buzz...

Wellington plays centre stage for its first Fashion Week.

From Wednesday 18 to Sunday 22 April, runway shows and networking events will see the energies of designers, retailers, promoters and media mix and sparkle. These will be brilliant days.

The major draw cards are the three designer shows. In total, three hours of vibrant runway. The collections of eighteen designers, from the hauntingly gorgeous Trelise Cooper through to the zesty emerging labels of Kelsey Genna and Silence Was, will exhibit with all the excitement of styling, lighting, hair, makeup and music. These shows will take place in the grand hall of the old museum building.

As well as these anchor shows, the Wellington Fashion Week crew have developed other events which will bookmark the event. A photo competition along Lambton Quay is a neat idea. A High Tea for designers and delegates will be a sumptuous platform for networking. A Couture Bridal capsule will highlight the best of design and fabrics, and a downloadable app is a savvy piece of technology for navigating your way through all the treasure.

Wellington Fashion Week will showcase the city, its great talent of designers and its superb range of shops and amenities.

We love the buzz of Wellington Fashion Week.

Terence Hodgson

Ink over Linen, by Hermione Flynn

Hermione Flynn lifted eight suits from  her summer collection called A Modern Ritual, put them on models and with anarchic joy, instructed the models to draw all over each other in a shop-gallery setting. Using drips of ink and fine pen lines, the models embarked on a performance which eventually finished with a stunningly altered collection. 

It was the artist directing the alteration of her own work. It took hours. The garments were transformed into new items slowly and with concentration. It was art, and performance, and agony – something to watch and savour. At the end, there were photos, video footage, and about 25 newly inked garments.

Challenge is an essential component of Flynn’s work – she will take us into ideas and juxtapositions which may have just ambled past our notice in the regular routines of living. 

The ink-overlay pieces are for sale in the same way a designer’s sub-collection or an artist’s lithographs are for sale: limited edition, and special. It would be an astute art museum which chose to add one of these works to their holdings.

Terence H

@iamkatythomas Fashion Week: #TheFutureIsNow

Photo by Wallace Chapman

At New Zealand Fashion Week this year, I was entranced by how much the digital landscape had shaped and was shaped by the trends set on our runway. Pride of place was given to bloggers while the shutterbugs flashed from the front row, as well as the paparazzi pit. The dubious qualification of being a blogger for the first time permitted fashion enthusiasts to sit sideline with the power buyers and media darlings. It certainly felt like a social (*media) revolution.

I’ve been attending New Zealand Fashion Week for some 8 years now. Next year will be my 9^th. In that time, I’ve seen it move from Auckland’s historic Town Hall to the wind tunnels of our Alinghi base at the Viaduct, to it’s final resting place; the spanking new Viaduct Events Centre. If the shiny newborn venue lacks the tired majesty of the old Town Hall; it more than makes up for it in mod cons. Controlled temperature and acoustics, free wifi, (though I doubt there was such a thing in 2003), multiple luxe bars and finally, VIP areas backstage. Proper stage and seating facilities ensured swift turn around and fashion shows that – shock horror – actually ran to schedule.

Not that I would have been aware of any of this finer detail in 2003. Luckily, I wasn’t a fashion reporter then, I was a lowly model.  Essentially I was a glorified living statue, paid to inhabit the Powder Room where the VIP’s and celebrities could come escape the madness, sip champagne and be pampered away from the melee outside. But I didn’t care. I would have cut off my right arm to stand there and simply inhale the fabulosity of all the fashion. Everything was tinged with the magic and beauty of perfection and each morning at 5am I cheered when my alarm went off because it was another day I was paid to work in heaven.

If I’m honest, I still feel that frisson of excitement at the start of every fashion week. But there is a difference.  In the early years, I was so excited to be there, I thought every single show was the best ever. In The Whole Entire World. I hadn’t even heard of half the designers and I certainly couldn’t have passed comment on the evolution of their designs.  I had no concept of their commercial viability, integrity of construction, nuances of inspiration or the financial, emotional and cultural investment from the design team.  I was, as most 19-20 year olds are, largely ignorant of the wider implications of pretty much anything in life that didn’t wholly match my own limited experiences.

Photo by Max Lemeshenko

I’m not saying I’m much wiser now. Nor am I any more educated or expert in my chosen art form. But I am more considered. I take time to digest what I’ve seen before I form my opinions on fashion shows. I am careful in my choice of words and how I portray others. I appreciate the epic efforts involved in the trend-storm that is Fashion Week. The hours of orchestration and the years of blood stitched into every seam. I know my own tastes and the aesthetics I am drawn to. I have an awareness of the dark and moody caricature our fashions paint onto the global perspective of New Zealand, as well as the historical persuasions that led them there. In short, I think before I speak.

Which is why I find it curious that half my invites this year were addressed to Katy Thomas – BLOGGER instead of Katy Thomas – Broadcaster. While I am both, the TV2 audience is significantly greater than that of any online kiwi publication. Nor do I understand the superhuman effort to prioritise bloggers (general) instead of bloggers (specific). Blogs are only of value if the writer’s readership matches that of a label’s target market. Pretty much anyone with a finger and a pulse can write a blog. That shouldn’t signify that what they have to say is either meaningful to your audience or the end consumer. Or that their brand adds to the designers own. Put it this way: if Trelise Cooper got a favourable review in “The Truth” I doubt she’d be skipping all the way home.

The irony here is, I’ve embraced social media from the outset.  I love to tweet; my facebook page is at capacity and I am a featured guest blogger for Social Media New Zealand, FashioNZ and Thread.  According to Klout, I’m as influential about fashion as Karl Lagerfeld!  Go figure.  Yet I would warn designers to be as selective in their guest lists as ever before.  Bloggers have truly earned their place at fashion week and those that offer sound, incisive commentary have as valid a contribution as any journalist.  However, to celebritize them and laud their appeal is short-sighted.  Today’s blog will be buried beneath a hundred more posts within a month.  But a quality fashion publication, prime-time news piece or exultant buyer will outlast the seasons and continue to drive happy customers to the door.  Fashion Week, you have been warned.