Fashion Week: Storm in a G-cup

Pamela Anderson left little to the imagination at her press conference last Thursday. Photo / Getty Images

They mainlined champagne, we got our fix of celebrity.

Fair trade probably.

But what a relief when Fashion Week ended with a salute to our own, which earthed us all back to Aotearoa after the out-there diversions of the riotous Pammy and Richie touring roadshow.

Before the Zambesi Retrospective on Saturday night, there was a giant rummage sale to underline that next season's fashion will be the year after's clearance clobber.

The fashion folk may not have been thick on the ground at the sale - "it's so current season" - but bagging a bargain was clearly the main attraction for thousand of punters at the public Fashion WeekEND.

They packed out the expanded New Zealand Herald Designer Garage Sale on Friday night and all day on Saturday.

No, I'm not saying that because the sponsor pays my wages - I had to elbow my way through the crowd to nab a blouse. (A bit like getting into the Pamela Anderson press conference, but without the entertainment value).

Returning to the venue on Saturday night was weird.

Most years Fashion Week proper is all over on Friday night, with the airless sheds turned over to the public and those poor models, seaters and other staff who have to make it though one more day of queuing and blagging.

Everyone else counts down to the late Friday off-site shows with a desperate desire to head home or get blotto.

But this time the lucky invitees all trudged back (many wearing flats) to a venue they've normally sworn off (for at least another 12 months) to honour the 30-year career of Elisabeth and Neville Findlay.

Making this the closing event of the week was a nice way to round things off and a fitting tribute to a pair who have helped define our fashion landscape and have supported the week since it began back in 2001.

It also reclaimed Fashion Week for New Zealand after it had been hijacked when Pamela Anderson hit town on Thursday, the very day everyone usually hits the wall.

But not this time. Tired eyes popped instead of drooped.

Sure, at 42, the unretouched close-up photographs are no longer that flattering, but in person her teeny tiny frame is trim and she can spit out the one liners.

Say what you like about Pamela Anderson and her partner in crime Richie Rich, at least they made us smile and didn't take it all too seriously.

"Have fun" was their mantra.

"Fashion should be fun" they repeated on endless loopy loop.

The perky Canadian girl, turned California beach babe, turned romper with rock stars, turned Playboy bunny supreme, turned Brigitte Bardot's "daughter" - and now add near-naked eco-wear warrior to the CV - did not disappoint.

She played exactly to type, accompanied by Rich and his merry band of men.

After joking she was "at home in the trailer park" she didn't mind when her backstage caravan was a Kea Campervan.

It was, though, weighed down with crates of Moet.

The tackiest thing I saw all week was not Anderson's tramp-stamp and g-string and g'normous knockers, but TVNZ breakfast host Paul Henry insinuating his (apparently eager) teenage daughter onto the couch for his interview.

Anderson may be desperate too, if a report out late last week in American tabloid magazine Star is true. It says she owes around US$1.2 million for construction work on her Malibu mansion, plus unpaid California taxes.

She's certainly working it hard, rather than just hanging at the beach back home at Malibu.

She left New Zealand in the early hours of Saturday to fly by private jet to Brunei, to attend a private party at the invitation of Prince Azin.

The A*Muse global roadshow has three months of dates booked. Next up is an appearance in Chicago on October 9. So let's see whether Auckland was the start of a 20-city striptease or a "notice us" fashion label launch. Or quite possibly one and the same.

It was surely no accident when Fashion Week managing director Pieter Stewart introduced the duo as "exciting figures in entertainment".

What the hell has their visit got to do with New Zealand fashion you may well ask?

Search me, but it sure got a heap of hits around the globe in places that never knew we had a Fashion Week.

Anderson at Fashion Week made the TV news in Italy (bet John Key at the UN didn't) and she's splashed across some scary websites that make you feel sorry for celebrities - even ones who court catastrophe.

Will this visit help us sell more clothes? Doubt it.

Will it help us attract guests to Fashion Week? More than likely.

Will we want them? Umm....

But it didn't kill us to let go of being dark, moody and insular all the time, just this once.