$33,000 and it is all yours

JOHN SELKIRK

SWAROVSKI SPARKLE: This outfit, in World's 2009 Winter range titled There is No Depression, comes with a $33,000 price tag.

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It was a riot of colour and sparkle, belying the current dour economic mood, to kick off Air New Zealand Fashion Week in Auckland yesterday.

World adorned its 2009 winter collection with thousands of hand-sewn Swarovski crystals in a collection named There is No Depression. The sparkly outfit, pictured, will set you back $33,000.

World designer Francis Hooper said the collection was designed to encourage women to spend money on luxury items, rather than mass consumption.

The famous and fashionable lined the catwalks at the Viaduct to see the winter 2009 collections of Kiwi labels. Instead of doom and gloom, it was luxury at Cybele, with beautiful halcyon kingfisher patterns printed on billowing satin shifts and skirts. Designer Cybele Wiren, formerly of Colville on the Coromandel Peninsula, used the bird motif with feather patterns and panels on her oversized t-shirts and jersey dresses with cape-like sleeves gathered and tied like wings. Morrinsville designer Annah Stretton spent the day attending shows with daughter Sam, and Hamilton designers Miranda Dawson and Jacob Scott-Simmonds from Nyne were spotted at the Nom*D show.

Tomorrow Waikato designers Nyne and Stretton both show off their collections, along with Cambridge's Robyn Brooks of label Ooby Ryn.