Fashion Week: Stitches, riches and bitches

Star of the week: Denise L'Estrange Corbet. Her book's out and front-row gossip (from Kerre Woodham actually) is that it's a great read. Denise has a new man, Ofir Yudilevich, on her arm and a smile she can't wipe off her face. He's executive chef at the Langham hotel in Auckland and he's tall and quiet and cute. And as for the World show which opened Air New Zealand Fashion Week, it brought tears to my eyes. The main part of the show was typically crazy World but the finale was breathtakingly beautiful. And weird. It was very couture, very international and a fabulous return to Fashion Week after a four-year absence, by Denise and estranged hubby/best friend/partner, Frances Hooper.

Best dressed: Noelle McCarthy. She wears a lot of Miss Crabb and her opening night ensemble was grey silk with steel jewellery worn against milk white skin with a slash of red lipstick. She looked like she had stepped straight out of Vogue. (And she always wears crazy high heels which earns any girl big points!).

Best (?) accessory: Seen on the head of a young lady at the Jaeha show on Wednesday morning - a very large bright green plastic grasshopper.

Most grievous front-row error: Putting celebs in row A and fashion editors in B or C. The big labels are savvy but some of the new ones have committed this Great Crime and will suffer accordingly.

Naughtiest front-row behaviour: Not singing along to the music, which is bad, or scrummaging around in your goodie bag, which is worse. No, the absolute pits, is pretending you have lost your invite and swiping someone else's seat. (And yes we know who you are!).

Most satisfying Fashion Week behaviour: Looking whoever you like up and down - brazenly! This is the one week in the whole year that this is socially acceptable.

Most daft: The designer (yes a very well-known name) who accosted a guy on Ponsonby Rd on Tuesday night after the Hailwood show. She was intrigued by the quality of the construction and the detailing of this guy's leather jacket and spent so much time examining the stitching that she failed to notice he was a fully patched member of the Mongrel Mob. (I witnessed this with my own eyes).

Most sick: Carol Hirschfeld was in hospital on oxygen on Wednesday morning. She's fine now but it was a very nasty lurgy.

Best goodie bag: a toss up between Trelise Cooper (La Mer face cream and chocolate) and Lucie Boshier (hair ties, make up, magazines, nail polish, champagne).

Most savvy fashion tip (courtesy of Cleo magazine): When buying very high heels get them a half size too small to be sure they support your arch. You can cope with more pain that way.

Most envied: It's always either shoes or bags. This year it was more bags and in no small part because a new company has launched itself into the market Arm Candy. They hire out the handbags you can otherwise only dream of, on a weekly basis. They may be the reason an awful lot more Prada and LV was seen than usual.

Best show for blokes: Trelise! She showed blouse after sheer blouse with nothing but bobbing breasts underneath.

Most Gold Coast: The woman with the long blonde curled locks and a military style jacket worn braless and (phwoarrr) open.

Most scandalous: Designers buying garments from factories in China, sewing their own labels in and saying the garment is their creation. More than one person is guilty of this but it will come to a stop soon as the factory "originals" are now coming in independently and when buyers see their cherished "Name" garment for sale in a mass-market shop, all hell is going to break loose.

Even more scandalous: There has evidently been a lot of sexual intercourse going on since last year's Fashion Week! Seen: fashion writer and PR Helene Ravlich six months gone, designer Cybele is six months pregnant too; designers Sera Lilly and Kristine Crabb and actress Kate Elliott are all pregnant as well and Miss Zambesi, aka Marissa Findlay, had a little boy two Fridays ago. But wait! There's more! Clyne star model Grace Hobson had a baby some months ago and artist Otis Frizzell was seen kissing his lady love while seated in the front row. So what that bodes for next year we can only ponder. (Meanwhile, the naughty Fashion Week Effect is even being felt transTasman. Former Miss New Zealand and Rich List daughter Rachel Cooper (nee Huljich) is pregnant. She and husband James are expecting their first baby in April. They don't know the sex yet and so far are calling him/her "Bean".

Most obvious international presence: Nicole's sister, Antonia Kidman at Yvonne Bennetti. She was over here for Living Nature, an international skin care range that comes out of Kerikeri. 

Most discrete international presence: LA PR girl Jessica Meisels and boyfriend Matt Halliday. He's the racing car driver from the Auckland suburb of Hillsborough, who hangs out with Paris and Nicky Hilton and he was spotted here hanging out with Fleur Revel-Devlin of Impact PR.

Worst music: Nom*D played it loud and proud and bloody awful.

Best fashion tip: The worse someone looks the cooler they are. The theory is that if the person can look that bad, then they must be very very cool. (Only losers like you and me have to make an effort)

Coolest make-up tip: Don't wear any. Wearing make-up means you are making an effort to look nice and if you are really cool you will not make an effort to look nice. (This is potentially disastrous of course).

Most pleasing transTasman one-upman ship: Fact: Australian Fashion Week started with Moet and now downs Rosemount. We, on the other hand, started with Deutz and have progressed to Moet!

Most popular political presence: Nikki Kaye. She's a Tory, up against Judith Tizard running for Auckland Central but she's hardcore green. (She dragged herself off a 22-hour flight from London last weekend to go straight to Waiheke for talks about rubbish disposal before heading to the Qantas Media Awards. Anyone else would have gone straight to bed).

Biggest little sensation: Zoe Fleury aka "Bionic Pixie". Dressed in a black 80s puff ball cocktail dress and purple and pink ankle boots, she was a lip-synching sensation at Hailwood. People were queueing up to compliment her.

Happiest celebrity: Kerre Woodham. On Wednesday she was wearing a gorgeous green beaded top by UK designer Matthew Williamson worth 600, which she had bought on Tradee for $120.

Best looking front-row presence: Petra Bagust. This woman is ridiculously beautiful.

Least impressive: The silver fox gilet on the dark lady seated front row. It may have been vintage but if it wasn't it was sad little garment.

Most expensive production: It would have to be Trelise's. She had a whole back drop of real flowers. Roses, lilies, and all white. Cost? $30,000

Biggest show: Trelise Cooper. She had two shows with 800 people in each.

Most celebrities in a show: Trelise again (Sally Ridge and Adam Parore, Dan Carter and Honor Dillon, Petra Bagust, singer Elizabeth Marvelly, actor / presenter Miriama Smith, All Black Ali Williams and girlfriend Casey Green, Kate Hawkesby and sister Jessica, Gretchen and Robyn Hart, Theresa Gattung, Kerry Woodham and Greer Robson.

Most interesting news of the week that's (almost) completely irrelevant to FW: Jonah Lomu reveals his girlfriend Nadene Quirk is five months pregnant. Lomu revealed the big news from London, which also held its fashion week last week, where he is to play in a charity rugby game.

Most unfortunate: The breast that came completely out of its dress and the white paper wadding that made its way out of a dark shoe on the catwalk.

What the models get paid: Base rate is $150 a show. (The shows are over in minutes but it's not much when you think how long hair and make-up can take, so they need to get a few each day to make it worthwhile.)

Most stupid looking front row: I won't say what the show was, but gawd there were some plonkers in it. Each person looked siller than the last with varying combinations of small hats, large glasses, small ties, socks either present or absent, very small or very large handbags (irrespective of sex) and trousers rolled up. And these were the cool people! That's Fashion Week for you!

- © Fairfax NZ News