Final word: The ultimate in people-watching

James Griffin. Photo / Dean Purcell

Opinion

Ah, it's that time of the year again, when the scent of New Zealand Fashion Week is in the air and I am called forth to wander like a hippo among the gazelles of the fashion world, up on the high veldt of the Viaduct Harbour, where all the cool people - and me - hang out, sipping methode champenoise through a straw.

So what am I hoping for New Zealand Fashion Week to deliver unto me this year? What trends do I expect to see sashaying down the runway before my very eyes? What thrills and surprises do I expect the 2010 version to throw up?

Well, it would be nice if "fighting and hugging" became something of a theme across the week. I've only ever been to one Fashion Week event where someone threw a glass of wine at someone else and, unfortunately, I managed to miss the whole fracas. This was a pity because the recipient of the glass of wine was one of those tacky tabloid gossip people and I would have happily joined in, had throwing wine at her become a trend across the evening.

This is not to say that I want to actually be involved in any wine-throwing/fighting/eye-gouging incidents, but I'd quite like to at least witness one such incident before I am deemed too old and tragic to attend future Fashion Weeks. I've been led to believe by television that fashion is a cut-throat industry full of highly-strung people, many of whom are on illicit substances, so the lack of full-on, to-the-death-or-at-least-until-someone-breaks-a-nail bar brawls has been somewhat disappointing across all my years as a once-a-year fashion correspondent.

But because this is New Zealand Fashion Week, not Afghanistan Fashion Week, I'd like to think that if two people (or more if, say, it is a melee between rival model factions) are fighting on Wednesday night, that by Friday night they are drunk and crying and hugging each other in the bar, each telling the other how much they love the other and admire their work. I'd think that's the Kiwi way of sorting things out and it would be a lovely thing to watch - from across the room, standing on my own, probably behind a palm tree, sipping bubbles through my straw, as is my way.

I'm picking that because the fashion industry and the false worship of celebrity gods go hand-in-hand, that various famous-in-New-Zealand people will turn up on catwalks during the week. I'm fine with that - I only hope they turn up in unexpected places, wearing unexpected things. Instead of Nicky Watson in a diamante G-string, how about John Campbell in a diamante G-string? That would certainly be unexpected and eye-popping.

For some reason I'm also seeing Paul Henry, dressed head-to-toe in Trelise Cooper. I don't know why I'm seeing this - and it worries me that I am seeing it - but I really do think he could pull it off. It undoubtedly wouldn't be pretty, but it would be funny.

I also feel that the opportunity is here for New Zealand Fashion Week to answer, once and for all, the question of "how thin is too thin?" when it comes to models. They could do this by employing models who are so thin that if someone hands them a helium-filled balloon, they will float away. I'm suggesting that these young women are so devastatingly skinny that if they step on to the runway and someone turns on a wind machine, their protruding hip-bones will act as aerofoils and they will glide about the room, above the heads of the massed fashionistas. Finally, when one of the models implodes and becomes a black hole simply by breathing out too quickly, then we shall finally know the answer. "Okay, there it is, that is officially too thin."

Speaking of black holes, it would be quite nice this year if there were some male models with an actual personality gallumping up and down the catwalk. I'm not sure what it is about the combination of being young and good-looking, plus wearing fab designer gear that makes these young men look so terminally depressed and bored all the time, but if someone were to liberally dose their pre-show mineral waters with Ecstasy, I think they'd be doing everyone in the crowd a favour. Ah, New Zealand Fashion Week, I shall be there, doing all the things one is expected to do at Fashion Week - passing snap judgments on the clothes, lying about how much I loved the clothes should I happen to talk to an actual clothing designer, hiding from said designer for the rest of the week if I don't manage to sound gushy enough ...

Yep, drinking it all up through a straw, that'll be me this coming week. Can hardly wait.