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BLACK IS THE NEW
MAROON: MELBOURNE
FASHION FESTIVAL
ROUND-UP, PART TWO
BY THE McGINLAY'S STAFF
March 31, 2003
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CHIC South Yarra Cocktail Party & Parade
Thursday, 7pm, Lotus Bar
JESSICA SMITH
Unfortunately the fashions this year was very disappointing,
my mum wears half of these things! Way too familiar for me. Anyway
jackets are big this season, leather, full length and fitted almost
like a second skin. Possibly good if you have a good, lean figure
but unfortunately the general population aren't size 6-8. The world
is not a cat walk. j/k nah, the viewing was good to see what was up
and coming and to see different styles trends even though it is a
spin on the old stuff from the back of the wardrobe. not surprised
if you could dust off the cobwebs... The brands were a tad on the
expensive side and more suited to older (not old) women so the interest
level was at a low because it's not the kind of clothes that I myself
would wear.
jess is a moron and she wears slippers like an old granny.
ha de ha u stink.
Designer Salon Show - Charles Parsons featuring Jenny
Bannister, Nevada Duffy, Melissa Jackson, Lui, Misho, S!X
Friday, 7:30pm, Sofitel Melbourne
ADAM WAJNBERG
I know it's cliché to say so, but I'm going to
say it: I do not find fashion models attractive. When I look at a
girl as a sexual being, the first thing I consider is whether or not
she looks like she could bear children. Hey, that's how the whole
thing works. I want to know that the girl has the faculty to sluice
out a slimy larvae chock full of my genetic good 'n' plenty. Most
of the girls on a runway don't look to have the uteral capacity to
squeeze out a tennis ball with my name and phone number on it.
I know what you're thinking: "White-boy who's listened
to Baby Got Back one too many times pretending he likes big booty".
You're wrong. I have nothing against skinny girls. In fact, I'm quite
fond of the pale, small bodied, malnourished white trash look (i.e.
Avril Lavigne and that chick who's doing that guy from That 70's Show)
because at least they look like they'd be fun. In the constant battle
between the lizard and mammal parts of my psyche there's the mammal
saying "She looks like she could be a good mother" and the
lizard saying "She looks 14, dude. 14".
Back to fashion models. See, as part of writing for
a Caulfield-renowned media outlet like McGinlay's, you get free entry
to events so that you can write about them. Sometimes you get stuff
you want (free tickets to movies) and sometimes you get stuff you'd
just as well use as Kleenex (media passes to the Melbourne Fashion
Festival). Originally, I wasn't even booked to review the damn thing:
Pat sent Dave and Paul to do the write up and Paul showed up late.
I waited with Dave for him to show up, and when he didn't, I couldn't
find an excuse not to use the pass. Eventually Paul did show up, and
we all got in. S'funny. One useful thing we discovered while waiting
for Paul is that if you look around the city quickly while the other
guy plays jazzy riffs on a kazoo, you can fool your brain into thinking
you're in an American Express commercial.
We got to the show a little bit before it began, looking
appropriately annoyed and bored, which is a must if you're ugly and
poorly dressed at a fashion show. If you've got a media pass around
your neck people tend to give you that leeway. Another good way to
fake that you're a real media person is to eat as much free food as
possible. We tried, but there's only so much warm sushi covered in
fingerprints that one can stomach.
After 4 or 5 days we were shuffled from the lobby and
into the…I dunno, "fashion room" or whatever the fuck
they call it (the place with the runway and chairs) and settled into
the back with the other fat people with cameras. To my dismay, the
chairs filled up quickly and I didn't get a gift bag, which I'm sure
would have contained valuable coupons I'd never use. I tried to grab
a spare but some tall gargoyle from the Herald Sun beat me to it.
But I digress.
Paul showed up just as some big guy started making painfully
unfunny jokes about his ridiculous, faggy jacket. Then this guy who
kinda looked like Saddam Hussein made a boring speech about BMW's
contribution to the fashion show and the shared mission statements
of the blah blah blah and the rest of the yadda yadda yadda. It was
almost a relief when the eerie, spooky dance music started.
So then the models come out. What I couldn't get over
was how amazing they weren't. Sure they were attractive, but in the
way the Krampf from IKEA is attractive. You couldn't imagine actually
having sexy-sex with any of them. The other thing is how weird your
perception becomes after just a few minutes: at the end of the first
display a dwarf-woman with tree-trunk legs and comically large breasts
came out, and it took a second before I realized a) this was the designer
and b) this woman was of perfectly normal proportions. It's like when
you turn on the lights as you stumble into the toilet, half asleep,
at 3:42 am.
The show started to drag, and we all prayed for some
faux-hip-hop music so that the things would walk down the white thing
faster and we could all go home that much quicker. Of course, there
were at least 2 displays where they played slow string music as the
girls walked down in diaphanous robes displaying their tushmeat and
making vaguely erotic lesbian movements towards each other. It was
like when you're watching your favourite show and you have to take
a desperate shit -- you want to leave but you know you're gonna kick
yourself if you miss it.
Now the clothes: do you remember that scene from Stripes
when Bill Murray and the others are ironically singing the Army recruiting
song while they trudge, exhausted, up a hill at the end of a long
day of training? That kept going through my head with the words Ready
To Wear. None of it was ridiculous, but it was all pretty stupid nonetheless.
Maybe it's because I just don't get fashion. I can't
imagine devoting what little brainpower I have to something as trivial
as what I'm going to wear. I realize there's an art and a discipline
to the art of designing clothes: working out cuts, colours, the industrial
index, the situation in Iraq -- It's the hanger-ons, the speculators
and pundits that drive me up the wall. I made a vow once and I make
it again now: If I ever come across Lillian Frank, I'm gonna punch
her in the cunt.
We left the way we came -- through the door. The highlight
of the night was a tuna and cucumber sandwich that didn't suck.
DAVID BLUMENSTEIN
I'm not sure there's much I can add to Adam's assessment,
except to say that we decided "Tiffany" smiles a lot not
because she has a lot of personality or is stupid, but because she's
a camera whore.
However, I do wish to point out that Adam just said
he did not find the models attractive in a "sexy-sex" way,
and then compared watching their quasi-Sapphic diaphanous erotica
tushmeat to watching his favourite TV show even when he has to shit.
Hypocrisy, I cry! HYPOCRISY!
Oh, and Paul said he would be arriving to the show dressed
in a bathrobe, Hef-style,
and didn't.
PAUL SUTTON
Clothes. To wear or not to wear. Well, haute couture
is the emperor with no clothes on of the fashion industry, in this
man's opinion. Clothes are made to be worn and to be worn they must
be practical. None of the clothes on display in this exhibition bar
the wedding dress was practical. Wedding dresses are never practical
and as such it was a winner. Someone told me that fashion shows such
as these are 'art'. Well, even as 'art', these clothes made Jackson
Pollock look like Da Vinci. As we all know, Pollock merely threw paint
at the canvas which is still more thoughtful than these fashion designers.
One final note - to the model who was Zoolandering down the catwalk
- the Zoolander walk is funny because it makes you look like a dick,
you cokehead. I was laughing at you not with you. Dogs walking on
two legs do it with more style and grace than you could ever hope
for.
