KEY POINTS:
It happens the first time you refer to a fashion designer by their Christian name and you expect everyone else to know who you mean. Like, when you say "oh, that's so Kate" or "Karen" or "Dries" and you mean Kate Sylvester, Karen Walker or Dries Van Noten. But of course, you actually don't know those people personally, just their clothes. And that's when you realise it's happened. You've turned into a fashion wanker. You've done something that's completely acceptable within the fashion industry - everyone does it - but that the rest of the world would think was a little bit suspect. Or even funny.
So for the rest of the world's entertainment, and to show that not everyone takes frocks and heels that seriously, we've gathered the confessions of various industry insiders about their favourite moments of fashion ridiculousness, whether those moments were something they did or something they witnessed. They're all staying anonymous because, even though they've bravely contributed to this piece, it means they're able to be completely open about their secret shame, the moment they recognised that they'd well and truly become part of the fashion industry.
All these stories are true and we'd just like to add that no fashion wankers were harmed in the writing of this article.
SECRET TALES OF SHAME FROM FASHION STYLISTS
"We were watching TV at home and a friend of ours had come to visit for a glass of wine and a chilled-out evening in the suburbs. One of those detective programmes, filled with gratuitous sexual violence was on - you know, like CSI:Miami or something. And on the TV they were examining the corpse of some poor victim, a buxom blonde who'd been chopped up or assaulted or strangled. It was a very unpleasant sight and we were all staring at the pictures with some horror. And we were talking about how shows like this really sucked in a feminist sense. At least, some of us were. Some of us were looking at something else.
"'Ooh, look she's got this season's Prada shoes,' I inadvertently blurted out as they dragged the dead woman's corpse away."
"I was at a 21st birthday party when a woman I had never met before seemed to be making her way across the room towards me. I didn't know her from a bar of soap but she introduced herself, then told me she had seen me on Ponsonby Rd the other day in what she sniffily called 'a funny looking car'.
"I asked her what kind of car because I had an old Honda Civic hatchback at the time. And she said, 'Oh yes, that was the sort of car.' Then she told me that she was just 'so surprised to see me in a car like that'.
"I asked why and she said, 'Well, goodness me, what do you spend your money on?'
"So I laughed and replied, 'Um, clothes, shoes and bags!'
"I almost wanted to tell her that the shoes I was wearing that night were worth more than my car but that I didn't care because I loved them. But I resisted.
"Then she said, 'Well, if you're hard up for cash you can always come and work in my husband's hair salon', before proceeding to let me know she had just bought a new Peugeot and her husband had bought a new Range Rover.
"I swear, I almost threw up on her. I'd rather be a fashion wanker than someone like that."
"I've always tried to avoid it but once when I was in Wellington doing a job and trying to get into a club down there, I was forced to pull out the 'Don't you know who I am?' card. As in, I told the guy on the door which magazine I worked for.
"Anyway, it worked. He let me, and about seven others who were with me, in. I was feeling slightly embarrassed about doing that but what happened next made me feel much better. Another guy, who'd been at the same fashion-y function as us, arrived just behind us. Same problem, same solution. Except to prove who he was and who he worked for, this editor pulled out his laptop and showed the guy on the door all his work. Like, all his work! Look, this is my work, this is my logo, this is my website, this is my magazine. It took about 10 minutes to do all this and by then the door guy must have been so bored - or maybe so unimpressed - he just let this guy through."
SECRET TALES OF SHAME FROM FASHION EDITORS
"So there we were, a bunch of fashion editors and writers from around town, seated in the front row at New Zealand Fashion Week a couple of months ago. Ricardo Simich, the seating guru - who knows our faces because we go to just about every fashion show and looks after all of us - had seated us all together even though the chairs we were in were not strictly ours as designated on our tickets.
"A very well-dressed woman approached us - I suspect she was an international buyer because she looked pretty amazing - and very politely said to us, 'I'm sorry but I think you're in my seat.'
"A few of us apologised and then said, we'd been told to sit here but that we would call Ricardo over and he could sort out her seats for her as we were sure he had it all under control. She seemed pretty happy with that and one of the fashion editors began to look for Ricardo. But now another woman, standing behind the international buyer, piped up. And she started going on about the seating problem too.
"At which stage I said to her, 'How many do you want? Do you need one too?' Things were getting a bit heated and I am sure I probably looked her up and down at this stage. Without being any more of a wanker, let me say she didn't look like an international buyer.
"And she turned around and looked at me too, saying, 'No, I don't need a seat. I'm just ... '
At which stage, I finished her sentence for her, 'You're just the minder.'
"To explain, most of the international guests get someone to guide them around the city and the venue; they're known as the VIP minders and some of them are very nice too. However this one glared at me, shrugged her shoulders as if to say 'You're such a bitch' and turned around, saying, 'That's right, I'm just the minder,' rather loudly as she went.
"So much for my policy of not judging people by their looks. To this day I am ashamed and embarrassed of this particular fashion wanker moment."
"When I was working at a New Zealand newspaper I had to research the fashion shows online on the Reuters website. As in, if I was writing a story about Paris Fashion Week I would look at the Reuters photos to see what shows their photographers in Paris had taken pictures at. Sometimes it was quite hard to find exactly what you wanted because the Reuters photographers didn't attend every show.
"It was also tricky because you'd be looking at thumbnail pictures - so they're only about 3cm wide - and everything is all mixed up, so you get pictures of politicians next to pictures of concerts or protests or any other news events, all alongside each other.
"I was desperately trying to find a picture of the Jean Paul Gaultier show when I saw a thumbnail shot of what must have been his show. I'd read about the show and the colours were all right, the woman in the shot looked model-skinny, she seemed to be wearing the artistically shaped clothes Gaultier had done that season and looked as though she had the crazy make up on that I'd heard all about. I was happy to have found it having spent about 40 minutes searching for a picture we could use in the paper. So I clicked on it to see it enlarged. Imagine my horror when it turned out to be a poor Indian woman sheltering under a blanket after a terrible fire had swept through her village."
"Trawling through Reuters for a picture of the latest silhouette to go with a story I came across what I thought was a plus-size model in an American runway show. On closer inspection it was actually Nicky Hilton, who wouldn't be a pound over a size 10. I was shocked to find I'd actually been conditioned into thinking size 0 was pretty mainstream."
"I was with a couple of friends who worked at TVNZ - one of them a well-known television personality - and we were making our way to one of the most important designer shows during Air New Zealand Fashion Week 2005.
"I'd been working at the shows all day, taking notes, filing stories and so forth, and my two TVNZ friends had not been working, but basically just hanging around at a couple of the other fashion shows, having a few glasses of champagne.
"By the time we got to this show, held offsite on the Auckland waterfront, we were running a little late. The power-crazed, door bitch took one look at my two rather recognisable companions and welcomed them into the venue with open arms, instructing one of the other employees where they should be seated.
"When it came my turn, she looked me up and down disdainfully, and motioned for me to go to the left whereas the others had gone right. 'Standing,' she dismissed me.
"I usually get a seat but I obediently turned left, thinking, well, fair enough, I am late - maybe there are no more seats available. Wrong! Once inside I realised everyone else in the room - 300 or so people - were seated. Except me and two other unfortunates I didn't recognise.
"That was one day I wished I had been more of a fashion wanker!"
"I'd magnanimously given up my front row seat at Trelise Cooper Kids Fashion Week show for the proud parent of one of the little darlings in the show.
The goodie bags in the front row had a coveted bottle of Jo Malone's latest fragrance and I wanted it badly, so I casually picked up the bag from what was my seat when a man grabbed it off me.
Having never, ever snatched a bag before, I spluttered and started to explain 'Sorry that was my seat ... '
'That's my bag' said the American VIP. 'What did you want from it?'
'The Jo Malone fragrance' I replied shame-faced.
He kindly handed it over and I beat a hasty retreat. Thing is, I've never been able to bring myself to wear the perfume."
SECRET TALES OF SHAME FROM INSIDE THE DESIGNER'S WORKROOM
"It's Air New Zealand Fashion Week 2005 and I'm on the door of a big-name designer show, handed the unenviable task of keeping out all the wannabes and hangers-on who are trying to beg, borrow and steal their way into the show.
"The designer has briefed me rigorously about who is and who isn't to be allowed into the show.
"Basically it's people with tickets only and each ticket must correspond to the person holding it. There are to be no exceptions.
"Tickets to this designer's shows are so highly sought-after that these terms are by no means unreasonable. The venues at Fashion Week are small and every seat is like gold.
"So after half an hour of guarding the door I come across a woman who's trying to get into the show on someone else's ticket.
"She knows she shouldn't be there and she talks on her phone all the way up to me and she definitely doesn't make eye contact.
"There are still at least 150 people waiting to get in so I have a bit of an audience for what happens next. I ask her to show me her ticket. She gives it up shyly but holds it in such a way that her forefinger covers the name on the ticket. I take the ticket from her hand and ask her what her name is. Of course it doesn't correspond with the name on the ticket.
"Some would say that the next thing I did was, well, a little over the top. But I had to stand firm. So in front of 150 eager guests, three security guards and two Fashion Week door bitches I ripped the woman's ticket up in front of her, put it aside and said 'You're going to have to get to the back of the line.'
"With her mobile phone still glued to her ear, the woman's jaw dropped and she slowly turned around, then skulked off. I could see the rest of the guests looking on in disbelief and a few of them even ran off down the corridor - probably so as not to have their hopes dashed in a similar way."
"A very fashionable lady and regular customer at our store came up to me at a fashion launch and asked me how I was. 'Fine,' I replied. 'How are you?'
Her reply: 'I only asked because I was worried about you.'
'Why?' 'Because you look the same.'
I walked away."
