Anna Fitzpatrick, presenter of ALT TV's weekly fashion bulletin 'The Seen' blogs from the front lines covering Rosemount Australian Fashion Week. * * *
KEY POINTS:
TUESDAY: This morning we had to be at the Camilla and Marc show at 8:30am off-site. We shared a cab with Chris Lorimer and Jimmy D but it was a mission finding a cab at rush hour and we turned up a tad late.
Now as you know I have had problems with tickets all week. I had RSVP'd to this show but when I went to registration to collect my ticket it mysteriously wasn't there!
We have these tags that hang around our necks with all the details of shows on them and my tag said I had a reserved seat for Camilla and Marc but they could not find mine anywhere and I was not in the computer! I was given a GA pass and went to stand in the massive line to get in.
Two minutes later Julie Roulston (Editor of FashioNZ.co.nz) came running down the line, saying her deputy editor wasn't coming and that she had a spare seat next to her.
She kindly offers it to me so for now I'm safe in a seat. Yay! no more lines and my feet will get a break!
As soon as the show finishes there's a torrent of 200 hundred people coming out of a venue, all wanting to get to the OPT (where fashion week is).
Now, you'd think the organisers would have booked a few cabs, but they had not. So we all split off in different directions to hail one down and make it to OPT for the next show, Zimmermann.
I ended up in a cab with a new face, Joylon, who I discover is the fashion editor of the new Australian issue of Grazia magazine, a weekly fashion mag that is HUGE in the UK and has been syndicated out here.
It turns out he is also staying three rooms down from me in the same hotel, so we swap details and I organise for him to meet our NZ designers selling at the Medina.
While I'm standing in the GA line (lost tickets again!) for Zimmermann, I have my daily chat with Clarke Gayford at George FM.
After a quick 2 minute chat and a 40 minute wait in line we are allowed in.
I spy my boyfriend Murray, who does PR for ghd in NZ (the hair sponsor for the Zimmerman show) in the 3rd row, one row in front of me!
It's another so-so show, but it makes me more eager to see what Kate Sylvester's got in store for later in the day.
Later on I meet up with Tatum Savage from M.A.C. New Zealand who kindly escorts me into the VIP Rosemount bar upstairs (another thing most media have received but I have not received due to my Kiwi status).
It's very cool up there, with great music, lots of comfy couches, interesting people and the whole bar is serving free drinks to everyone.
I had been filming backstage at Kate Sylvester prior to this and Karen Inderbitzen-Waller (Kate's stylist) was stressing as a male model's shoe keep slipping off when he walked.
We decide if it does, he can just pick it up and throw it into the crowd and it will work with the theme, Royally Screwed.
We almost miss the call for the show whilst chatting in the bar, but once we're inside I get my first front row seat of the week. Ahhh, it's nice to be surrounded by friendly faces and treated well.
Kate's show turns out to be my favourite of the week! I loved it and all the media here did as well, both kiwis and Australians.
You know they love when they all run backstage as soon as the last model leaves the catwalk. I follow the media scrum backstage and wait my turn while all the other TV shows interview Kate, and when she gets round to me she is lovely as always. By the way, no shoes went flying in the show!
After this we head to the Bilich gallery where a few other NZ designers are selling their clothes.
We talk to Adrian Hailwood, Alex Kim from Jaeha, Cybele, the guys from Federation and a few other labels.
Tomorrow we will be interviewing Juliette Hogan, Sera Lilly, TwentySevenNames, Laurie Foon and others who are staying at our hotel in the Medina.
After returning from the Bilich Gallery my feet really are in pain; two full days in the same heels hasn't done them any good.
Alex Perry and Frisoni Finetti are on later but there is a three-hour break before their shows.
I decide I just can't wait here that long so I head back to the hotel to put my poor tootsies in a hot bath!
Tomorrow we are seeing Ginger & Smart in the morning which I am pretty excited about, then we'll just have time for a spot of shopping on Thursday morning before we fly out that afternoon.
* Catch ALT TV's 'The Seen', Tuesdays, 8pm, on Sky channel 65.
