With Fashion Week turning 10, Canvas columnist and World co-founder Denise L'Estrange-Corbet meditates on its importance, its problems and recounts a memorable tanty at World's first New Zealand show.
So it was decided. A small and rather select fashion and business group met up regularly after work in a Ponsonby office throughout late 1999 and 2000. It was a very Secret Squirrel operation and we did not discuss it outside the group.
After much debating, a vote was now taken, and it was unanimous. New Zealand could warrant holding its own. Thus 2001 was to see the birth of New Zealand Fashion Week.
Of course, it was very easy for the select group, as we could walk away, we were not the ones who would have to physically give birth to this monster. That was left in the hands of Pieter Stewart, the woman I secretly call "Ms Knightsbridge Legs", as they stretch all the way up to her armpits and beyond.
Stewart is no stranger to fashion. A former Christchurch model, she had also run the highly successful Wella and Corbans Fashion Collections in the 1990s, but like everything else, fashion changes at an alarming rate.
These shows were what we call "group shows". The "designers" - and I use that term loosely, as most of what you saw was copied directly from overseas samples that had been bought - knew their capabilities, and their place in the pecking order of fashion.
Today it seems, anyone who can manage to thread a needle with only one eye open and spell the word "Bernina" aided by spellcheck can be heralded as a "designer", which I find particularly alarming.
The show went on. Each brand showed a small selection of their wares, one after the other on the same night, to a packed audience.
After the public had left, all were high on the adrenalin that a fashion show pumps through your veins. Before the hysteria that now surrounds Fashion Week (and the part that could almost warrant having its own standalone section entitled, 'what is in your goodie bag?'), a party would be held for the designers, promoters, sponsors and crew. It had very family feel. No one felt too high and mighty or important to talk to you, it was a great chance to meet others in the industry. We all shared the highs and lows.
A lot of the fashion shown back then was by big clothing manufacturers, "designers" had still not yet come into their own, and calling yourself one would sometimes be met with the verbal reaction of "w**ker", whatever that meant.
The Pepper Trees, Jags and Thornton Halls were the big boys on the block then, and we were just on the periphery, on the outside looking in, dipping our toes into the fashion pond, deciding if we wanted to swim in their direction or our own.
We were the tiddlers, and the sharks were circling and watching us closely, from a distance, as they do, whenever money is involved. We were about to be thrown in, head first. Some would swim, some would sink, thus was the nature of the beast.
In the 10 years of Fashion Week I have yet to see Pieter Stewart flustered. No matter what is thrown her way, or with what ferocity, she is always polite and professional, even though it is not all plain sailing.
World had already done the international shows, in Australia, London, Hong Kong and Singapore, by the time New Zealand Fashion Week was to be launched in 2001.
We had shown, along with three other brands, at Mercedes Australian Fashion Week in 1997, representing New Zealand, and this was the first time we as a country had been invited to show on an international stage.
When the invitation first arrived in the mail from Australian Fashion Week, I thought it was a joke, a circular, and binned it. Had they not been persistent in calling, we would have missed out.
I felt the original four really opened the doors for the rest to follow. We were the lab rats. We went in blind and two brands were heralded: World and Zambesi.
The third was swimwear manufacturer Moontide, run by the late and effervescently charming party animal, Tony Hart.
His business was already far bigger than any of us, but it was not "fashion" per se, it was beachwear, and he knew this, so didn't chase fame. World and Zambesi went on to be invited to show at London Fashion Week, twice, two years later in 1999, but now with a different cast of players. We had grown up and were now playing ball with the big boys of London fashion.
Fashion should not be taken too seriously. It is big business, I am aware of that, and one which churns out millions of items and billions of dollars each year. But let's be real, the world is not going to end if we don't get the latest Louis Vuitton bag, so a sense of humour needs to be on hand, and a perspective kept.
I have met the most anal of people in fashion, across all walks, and even a good dose of colonic irrigation wouldn't loosen some of their tightly clenched buttocks and their sour demeanours, more's the pity.
Fashion Week has two big problems though, I fear. Firstly it needs a selection committee. It is much like property developers that are trying to entice you to take a space in their new complex. Names, names and more names are bandied around and dropped, but at the end of the day, if those names do not appear, anyone with the money to pay is allowed on board, the space has to be filled and paid for, and that is a problem.
We want to show quality, not quantity. I would rather see two very talented designers than a flurry of mediocre ones, with the odd good one thrown in to hold it all together.
If at London or Paris Fashion Week, a designer showed an outfit which, it then transpired, was a direct copy of another person's work, they would be cast out, exposed as a charlatan. But not here, they just carry on, with no embarrassment.
If we want to be taken seriously on the international fashion circuit, then we had better bloody well step up to the mark, and sort the wheat from the chaff. We also need real buyers. International buyers, and good international media. Not people who have stores overseas and pretend to be coming to buy new brands, but are really on a junket courtesy of Fashion Week.
These people go around, seeing impressionable young - and some not-so-young - designers, hoodwinking everybody in their path. They pretend to have chequebooks large enough to cover the national debt, puffing out their pigeon chests to impress all, while being given the most VIP of treatment, all paid for, something they never get at home, as really, they are nobodies, truth be known. They enjoy our vineyards, boat trips, five-star eateries, plush hotels, their suitcases bulging with all the free clothes, make up, jewellery that is lavished upon them, as they are the key to all our success, have champagne literally poured down their throats at regular intervals, as it is all very thirsty work, fashion.
They tell everyone they're beautiful, talented, amazing, blah, blah, get on a plane, fly home, cancel the orders, and tell a few they just wanted a holiday, to get out of the rat-race.
Year after year, you see them at all the parties, promising overnight success to all they meet. When they get home they are going to tell everyone they know and make you an overnight, international success story, Anna Wintour, hold the front page! They get home. Nobody ever hears from them again.
Not many designers want to talk about it, and I can see why. But it happens. They should have to put their money where their mouths are, or they never come again. New Zealand Fashion Week is not an International Fashion Community Service, it is a business. We might be a small country, but we are not a country of idiots.
The Town Hall was Fashion Week's first venue back in 2001, and it was all go for World. We had flown our hair and make up team over from Sydney.
Brent Lawler, the boy from Hamilton now living in New York and flying on private Lear jets here, there and everywhere, was the head of our team, and had been since we first showed in Auckland in 1989. He has a gob on him the likes of which I had only ever encountered once before - on myself. So we hit it off immediately.
Apart from World's Francis Hooper, Lawler is the only person I know who lives, breathes and dreams fashion. In fact, when they get together I often leave the room. Even I find it too much.
We always flew over to wherever he was, showed him the sketches of the collection and we would collaborate on the hair and makeup looks. The man is a genius, there is no doubt about it, and we could not find a team with a leader who had that kind of vision then, or now. Harold Samu is in charge of everything else, and the 190cm Samoan takes no prisoners. When he shouts, you jump. I laugh, and love working with him.
Since the Wella and Corban days, World had always flown in its own team, and New Zealand Fashion Week was no exception.
Nobody knew what to expect. It had never been done on a scale like this before. What if nobody except your Nana turned up with her knitting? My most disappointing memory in the 10 years was our show at the Freemasons Lodge in Airedale St. It was the first time women had been allowed into the Lodge, and the fee they charged us for using the venue, they donated to Breast Cancer, which I thought was wonderful.
But the logistics of the event were a nightmare, as our show at the Town Hall had held 2000 people and the Lodge held just 200. Fashion writer Stacy Gregg - now the author of kids' pony books - threw her toys out of the cot and got up to leave. When I asked why, just before the show started, she flashed her lanyard around her neck and said "This! I don't do Row B".
I could not believe it. She had been invited to my show, and she tells me where she wants to sit? Get a life.
The funniest thing is a shop owner from Wellington. She has wanted to stock World for many years and I always refuse, as we have our own store.
Each year she would ask for tickets to our show. I would always decline, explaining that we were limited on space, and it is only media, buyers or customers who can come. Each year, after our show, she would call to say how much she had enjoyed it, describing it in great detail. Her cheek astounded me, as we never advertised where we would be showing, but she would find out, wait for hours, then sneak in without a ticket when no one was looking and hide behind chairs, watching. Hilarious.
Over the years we have shown at the Auckland Town Hall, the Freemasons Lodge, the Northern Club, in the tent at Halsey St, and this year we are showing in the chandeliered Great Room at The Langham. We are holding two shows this year, both on September 22, the evening show being for the public (I hope you are reading this in Wellington), seated at tables enjoying Man O'War wine and canapes. This, I feel, will foil our little mouse from Wellington and others like her who scuttle around to shows, trying every ruse to get in without being seen, so they can say "I went".
They fail, of course to say they were not invited, and most assume if you are there, you had to be invited, such is the mad, frantic behaviour when the Fashion Week circus comes to town. And here it comes again, 10 years on. Get your tickets now.
