PerthNorg

Perth Fashion Festival: Not For the Timid

So it’s day five of Perth Fashion Festival 2007 and there is no reason why keen fashion lovers all over Perth have not had the opportunity to embrace this event, with access to both well established designers as well as new emerging local designer showcases. The major features of the festival include runway shows, Awards of Excellence, national guest appearances, events that are free for the public and exclusive social events.

So far, the festival has been a huge success, and in its ninth year of existence, appears to be going from strength to strength. Having attended most of the festival so far, it is clear to me that the booming local Perth social scene is gagging for such events almost to the point of ridiculous.

The VIP Launch party was held on Thursday night at the Town Hall.

This was presented by the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and featured a showcase by Italian brand La Perla.

 Let me start by saying that the venue, catering and runway show in general was excellent. Swimwear, underwear and evening wear were featured to a clean choreographed routine to sensual, floaty, eerie music.

 Italy had certainly found it’s way to the hearts of this eager Perth audience, and the foreign fashion genre left us all dreaming about late night cocktail parties in Milano, mixed in with ball gowns worn against stunning Roman architecture and bejeweled swimsuits worn to stoney beaches somewhere in the Mediterranean.

This taste of Europe was enchanting for the moment, however I felt the collection to be limited and the collections choice of colour scheme to be rather dull and ordinary.

As outlined on the fashion festival website this event was an exclusive invitation only cocktail event for the ‘discerning and the elite’.

 Basil Zempilas took great delight in his introduction of the evening in pointing out the exclusive nature of the tickets and how the audience was a hand picked selection.

 Which was why I was shocked when I was assaulted by a lady I was standing next to in the ‘hand picked’ audience. It came about when I noticed she was wearing the same dress as I was (nothing overly fantastic, just a little Review number that I recently picked up and had thrown on in a hurry to get there after work…Louis Vuitton had not hand picked my outfit for the evening), seeing that we had the same dress I gave her a smile and carried on walking towards my spot (thinking ‘yep funny, we have the same dress, what a coincidence’).

Within moments she set upon me and demanded that I move away from her (I obviously thought she was joking…after all we weren’t on the catwalk…and it was a rather simple non stand out kind of frock).

 I smiled and turned around to talk to some friends. She then walked up to me and pushed me to the ground saying (rather loud for so that the entire hand picked crowd could hear) “Go away from me we are wearing the same dress, the cameras will see”.

 Probably 40 percent embarrassed and 60 percent amused by this my friends and I moved to a different position to watch the show. This woman’s passion (for essentially nothing) really made my night, I thought about how funny it was in such a little scene that some one had thought themselves so significant that they had fully pushed me in public in a heat of passion, because we were wearing the same dress from MYERS. Brilliant I thought.

 Forget the stupid scenes of exotic women in ball gowns adorned in pearls prancing around Milano. Maybe there is room after all in Perth for the ultimate material girl!

To contrast this event, was the excellent Wheels and Dollbaby  21st Anniversary Show on Saturday night.

 This is significant for Perth as Melanie Greensmith is in fact a Perth girl, whose fashion career started out here and has grown into an international empire since. The showcase featured busty models in Greensmith’s signatory style, namely 1940’s glamour, meets a rock ‘n’ roll vibe, meets  red lips and sex kittens. Strutting down the catwalk to classic rock anthems such as “these boots were made for walking”, this parade was really worth its ticket for both its edgey fashion and sexy entertainment value.

This event was where I had the most fun of all. For two main reasons, firstly I was not pushed to the ground by a crazy woman for wearing the same rather mediocre dress, and secondly because the fashion festival had taken it’s toll on me, and I found myself quite smugly content with the fact that no other ***** was wearing the same dress as I was.

Am looking forward to the next five days.