It was with slight trep­id­a­tion I signed up to cov­er Wel­ling­ton Fash­ion Week. I do love clothes, but I don’t know any­thing about fash­ion shows. I’m will­ing to learn though, and it was a good chance to pull on my best shoes.

Joanna and the Fly and I trot­ted off to the open­ing party on Wed­nes­day. It was at the Audi deal­er­ship on Cam­bridge Ter­race which ini­tially struck me as an odd ven­ue, but when we got there and saw the red car­pet, the ritzy cars and the huge spot­lights (remin­is­cent of Arena c. 1991) it got us in the mood. There were muchos tasty bever­ages, min­im­al snacks (appro­pri­ate for the lean crowd) and lots of beau­ti­ful people. Joanna and I made it into the Dom Post social pages. Please don’t feel the need to com­ment on my expres­sion.

On Thursday I went along to the Group A show with Brock. He’ll write that exper­i­ence up for you. (And while we wait for that, read about it over on Pretty Pretty Pretty - Joanna)

Fri­day saw the Group B show, I was most excited. It fea­tured loc­al love­lies Star­fish, as well as STORM, Philippa&Alice, Kel­sey Genna, nev­er­black, +silence was…+ and Robyn Math­ieson. The show was a lot slick­er than the pre­vi­ous night, I guess they’d ironed out a few glitches.

Robyn Math­ieson had a sol­id range of  pieces show­cas­ing her love of prints and col­our which has made her a stal­wart of the loc­al design scene.

Kel­sey Gen­na’s col­lec­tion was a breath of fresh air, loads of pretty frocks which made the mod­els look sweet and youth­ful and fun.

nev­er­black had male mod­els! It was nice to have the vari­ety, I giggled a bit.

STORM’s range had some pretty awe­some leg­gings and quite a swell tunic, but the mod­els look sad in the clothes. I think they were going for an intense look. Sad, skinny mod­els can be a bit depress­ing and I def­in­itely enjoyed shows where the music was more upbeat and the mod­els could bounce along.

Which brings me to Star­fish, the finale of the show. I have a def­in­ite bias, because I have owned many Star­fish clothes over the years, and I think they’re just amaz­ing. They don’t date, the qual­ity is great, and the eth­os of the com­pany is hon­our­able. The clothes in this show did­n’t dis­ap­point, they were amaz­ing shades of pink/coral, yel­low, bright teal and really cute hats.

I was well impressed with the organ­isa­tion of the event. It felt glam­or­ous, but not daunt­ing, a real Wel­ling­ton event. I’d love to see it grow and con­tin­ue, hope­fully with even more loc­al design­ers included.

(Pho­tos from Janet Liu)