Michele Hewitson: A passion for fashion

For some inexplicable reason my tickets to Fashion Week failed to arrive this year. I rather suspect there was a muddle which resulted in John Campbell getting my front row passes (what would he know? He only wears suits).

Still, he rather deserved them. He managed to sit through an interview with that weird woman, Diane Pernet, who has worn only black since she was born and who sports hair like a black French wedding cake. And a mantilla thing. Black of course.

Just how this made her interesting was beyond me. New Zealand women only ever wear black. And John didn't ask. He looked to be on the verge of hysterical laughter, as you well might be having to interview somebody who is wearing sunglasses and is not Ray Charles. I wanted him to say: "Don't you know you look like a twit?"

But he was his usual courteous and charming self. Until the end when the cheeky sod said, "same hairdresser as Peter Dunne". That was the highlight of telly's coverage of the fash pash.

As for me, because JC had pinched my tickets - I hope he had to sit behind that hair woman at the shows - I stayed home and watched tapes of shows involving fashion.

This wasn't too much of a hardship because I am a dedicated fan of America's Next Top Model, and now there's a new series. Yay! as they say a lot on model world.

I have long held that Top Model is public service television. Any young thing who thinks they want to be a model should be made to watch it. Modelling is pain and humiliation posing as work. On Top Model, it is also about women being made to look the way a bunch of gay men think women should look. Which is like freaks.

We're always being told that models are not thick, that it takes a smart model to be a good model, which is why Tyra Banks, the model whipper-into-shape is always telling them to lose "your attitude". In other words, your brain.

"It's about being a blank palette," said Tyra. In other words, it's about not having a brain.

But it's all jolly good telly. I like the silly walks best. They are the best since John Cleese and the Ministry of.

Top Model is on TV3 and so is Project Runway and so is John Campbell, of course. They have all the good shows. Project Runway is like Designer Idol mixed with Designer Survival. People are going to start getting pretty bitchy, we were warned. Yay! Etc.

It hasn't got very bitchy so far, but the potential is there. When you have designers who say things like "I never compromise my art", and one who looks like he thinks he's Oscar Wilde, the claws should be out soon.

In the first episode, the designers had to create an evening frock out of stuff they could buy at the supermarket.

This would have provided no challenge at all to New Zealand designers, coming as they do from the country which once exhibited a Judy Bailey sculpture made out of fruit and veg. Which was, when you think about it now, a remarkably prescient statement on the longevity of telly stars, and bananas.

On Project Runway, the Oscar Wilde chap with the unlikely name of Austin Scarlett made a dress out of corn husks.

Bits of it dropped on the catwalk. Or the dogwalk as the bloke at the taxi company called it the other day.

Both of these events were funny. And much more fun, I suspect, than anything that happens at Fashion Week.