Sulky vibes steal show

An offering from fashion designer Little Brother. Picture / Carolyn Robertson

As the fourth pouting stringbean staggered past, one of my dad's standard reprimands came flashing back: "Pick up your bottom lip before you trip over it".

Now before Murray Crane has a hissy fit, it wasn't the clobber they were wearing - his Little Brother stuff was a refreshing shift away from anonymous hoodies and baggies - it was more the sulky vibe he was attaching to the clothes.

Up to that point a healthy pre-match tension had been established via some premature seating panic. As the 7.30pm start time came and went the usually sought-after front-row seats remained for the most part stubbornly empty. Never a good look.

Not to worry. Uber-concierge Ricardo Simich was at hand and efficiently went about offering mates welcome upgrades and potential face-time on telly.

Then - wouldn't you know it - just as the lucky fullas began rummaging through their free stuff, they were being stared down by the previously anointed.

If you can't be fashionably late to a fashion show, when can you?

At least it provided some mirth among the cheap seats as negotiations were conducted with bared talons and forced smiles. Especially when one pair of self-important blondes refused to make way for a couple of brunettes, sheila politics I guess, only to then be ignominiously shunted aside by two gay New Yorkers. Talk to the hand, honey.

For a well-anticipated event, it was a little light on the celebrity factor. Cameron Silver, a nice chap who seems to have convinced everyone of the utter bollocks that he invented retro, was on hand - but sadly the sun was still up so there was no sighting of the Grim Reaper wannabe, fashion writer Diane Pernet. Her website says she was at dinner, so bang go the vampire rumours. Anyway, everyone eventually found a spot and were happily drinking, babbling to neighbours or circulating the air by waggling multi-ringed fingers at mates across the way when this long streak of misery blocked their view.

Gedoutovit, oh hang on, the show's started.

Blur's Country Life pouring from the speakers was an unsubtle clue to the source of the styling, think tweed, earthy tones, Tom Brown's School Days and old Rolling Stone manager Andrew Loog Oldham.

As for the vibe, well, models are instructed on the feel the designer wants to generate on the runway, but if anything was said to these bags of bones before they went out it must have been "you're a very naughty boy, now go to your room".

Then again, the footdragging teen angst may have been down to the bruises and cuts painted on their faces or the tape they had to wrap round their shoes.

Strange, Murray, strange. At least one tried to look dead 'ard in his purple drop shades, cartridge belt and stylee combat pants.

Just like he'd stepped out of the jungles of 'Nam.

Well, Blenheim anyway.