Fashion blogger Isaac Hindin Miller files from Berlin Fashion Week...
Kai Kuehne, the final show of Berlin Fashion Week had just ended and I was walking out of the backstage area with Steve when he stopped abruptly in front of me.
A striking elderly woman shrouded in charcoal cloth grabbed his hand and said in thick accented English: "David! David, is that you?"
"Verushka my dear," replied Steve, "how are you? It's me Steve."
"Oh!" She gasped. "Steve, I'm so sorry. I thought you were David."
We were in the presence of Verushka von Lehndorf - Germany's answer to Twiggy - and she'd just mistaken Steve Wood for David Bailey.
Besides maybe one major show to close the event, the final day of most Fashion Weeks is generally reserved for those designers you could afford to miss.
The reason for the big bang at the end? To keep media and buyers around - otherwise they'd all bugger off on the second to last day.
I watched one show from the front of house today, it was one you could afford to miss. The clothes were fine, nice even - floaty dresses in aqua-esque printed silks - but it was the finale that killed it.
If you look at shows like Prada, Gucci or Burberry, the designers come out at the end for a split second then run off again as quickly as possible.
Few designers can get away with walking the entire catwalk - John Galliano is the only one that I can think of - he can strut a 100 metre long runway, pull his signature pose a few times and have the crowd screaming for more.
Then there are the gimmicks.
I like my fashion shows short and sharp - models walking down the catwalk, posing once, then walking back off.
Call me conservative, but for me there's nothing worse than models walking up and down the catwalk twice, or three models walking at once, or complicated formations where nobody quite knows what's going on. You see it a lot with student designers - and it's always a gigantic cringe fest.
The finale of this show included a full runway walk by the designer and a gimmick - girls lining up at 10 metre intervals all the way along the catwalk.
Oh, and did I mention the flowers? Not one bouquet, not even two, but three gigantic bunches of flowers the designer could hardly carry.
But topping it all off was the microphone. For some reason the poor woman had decided to thank the audience audibly with the help of the venue's full PA system.
Only it didn't work. So she was walking down the runway, carrying two bunches of flowers, then a third, and speaking into a microphone that just would not make any sound.
New Zealand model Georgia Fowler was in the show, and I could have sworn I saw her stifle a giggle.
The big bang show of the day was Kai Kuehne, a designer who'd shown in New York for the past few seasons but this time chose to come back home to Germany. I slipped backstage with Steve and he immediately went to work setting up his mini studio.
He's the only one who does this and I can never figure out why - the shots always come out looking so perfect you'd think they were already retouched. Pre-touched if you will.
When I say studio I mean he finds a clear piece of white wall and surrounds it with two big sheets of polystyrene, or a sheet of polystyrene and a mirror - to create a sort of light box effect.
That done, we herded all the models one-by-one into our little lair to shoot beauty (the close-ups of the face to showcase hair and makeup).
There must have been some kind of alien theme to the mostly white and gold collection because all of the girls wore white or black contact lenses. Channelling Storm from X-Men perhaps?
My favourite backstage shots are the ones taken when the girls have just stepped off the catwalk - they're always hyped up and willing to pull crazy shapes. This one was wild.
With the freakish white colour contacts the girls looked like aliens running around in dresses and heels, and with it being the last show of the week they really went for it.
The minute the show had ended and the crowd departed, the security guards arrived, proclaiming "everybody must leave right now!"
We packed our bags and walked out as workers stormed the tent dismantling anything and everything in sight. Very efficient, very German. It was all over.
Would I go again? Definitely - it's still a very young event and it'll get better and better each time, though perhaps next time I'd just come for Hugo Boss and Michalsky.
While I did enjoy myself, it was always going to be tough to live up to the hype, success and fun times of Paris menswear.
I guess the one thing that really sullied the experience for me was the people working on the doors - the security guards and ushers who insisted on seeing my pass everytime I walked near them - sometimes even four times in one day.
I understand that they were just doing their job, but come on - if I could remember their faces, surely they could remember mine.
Let's call it a cultural difference. We New Zealanders are notoriously relaxed when it comes to most things so the idea of such strictly controlled procedures is always going to be abhorrent to me.
Maybe I'll get used to it with time?
Next stop, Paris Haute Couture.
* Click here to follow Isaac's Twitter feed, or see his website, isaaclikes.com.
