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)