I don’t really mind; it is after all only a minor pollutant. More an irritant, really, that occurs mostly at this time of year, like hay fever. Unfortunately this year it coincided with a far greater seasonal irritant, Auckland’s annual “Fashion” Week.
Now, I have to readily acknowledge that I somehow missed my invitation to the event and like most of us consigned to below P in Auckland’s alphabetical social list my only exposure to the considerable over-exposure of this week’s fashion offerings was what I saw in the media. Am I resentful? Am I envious? No. Am I being completely truthful there? No.
I would like at least to be acknowledged and promoted to the F list alongside Auckland’s lengthy list of failed public relation professionals, anybody who had or still has any form of relationship with Len Brown, and Auckland Transport executives. However, that was not to be.
But, I still feel the love.
I feel the love of young fashion designers, Hohepa Thompson and Mia Brennan who took the opportunity of a Fashion Week catwalk to publicly declare their love (or is it aroha?) for each other by Mr Thompson proposing marriage to Ms Brennan. I was once warned off making a similar public declaration, citing the possible embarrassment if the proposee refused. The warning was well-meant but without subsequent foundation. I was accepted, and so was Mr Thompson which is little surprise given that he and Ms Brennan have been living together for three years and have a seven-month daughter called Tallow.
Ms Brennan said yes and, according to the NZ Herald (cringe alert), the Fashion week audience went “aahhh”.
But what strikes me about this is that their love’s public expression and explosion for each other was one of only two moments of genuinely sincere, non-pretentious, non-patronising, believable and eminently practical events in the whole Fashion Week calendar.
The other was the launch and appearance of Confitex’s incontinence panties.
The young couple’s sincerity did not perhaps extend to their fashion offering. And here I quote from the NZ Herald coverage details about the loving couple’s creations: “Their Hangi Collection brought together her summer-friendly dress designs with an environmentally friendly dyeing method they cooked up together. Clothes are left to simmer in a hangi only to emerge with a sepia print effect. Any irregularities, including the odd scorch mark, are integral. ‘We were just talking about family and food and how it brings everyone together and the idea of country and cloth,’ said Brennan. That set them experimenting, with joint dye and design time sandwiched between Thompson's day job as a painter in the relaxed resort town.”
All very laudable. But really? “Family and Food?” “Country and Cloth?” “Cooked up in a hangi?”Now, who is going to wear that? Be honest.
But also be fair—it is highly unlikely that anything featured in Fashion Week is likely to seen beyond the catwalk. Nor, I think, is it intended to. Fashion Week is not there to have any practical purpose. Or indeed any purpose.
Except one.
Fashion Week like party political conferences and just about every other “conference” organised world-wide is there solely for one thing—for everybody to have a good-time. The only gatherings that aren’t, and both are unique to our dear dear New Zealand, are marae meetings and Green Party conferences. Nobody expects to have a good time there.
But, unlike Fashion Week, at least their hangis dish up something more edible and edifying than country and cloth.
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