Wellington Fashion Week Wows

It has been a super exciting time here in the capital with our first Wellington Fashion Week having just ending. Set against a beautiful venue backdrop, we watched collections from our favourite established Wellington designers mixed with young, new talent. The music was eclectic and good and loud, the goodies bags looked amazing, the crowd was excited and wowed by the professionalism of the event. I have to say being a personal stylist who every day sees the people of New Zealand, in all their glorious shapes and sizes, I find it hard to turn my 'practical' brain off when viewing catwalk fashion. I can appreciate the detail, the 'wow' factor, the sheer brilliance of creativity at it's fashionable best. But still my brain says 'ok, so WHO can wear that? And if that person isn't 6 foot, then how is that length going to work?" Overall colour was not in abundance with the crowd on any night, or with many of the collections. Pops of colour was the most popular way of integrating it, with Wellington's favourite neutrals, black, white and grey. I guess the Wellington crowd would have loved the dark, sombre colours of some of these collections. Being 'the woman who doesn't own any black' - as introduced by someone in the press to another - I am a lover of all things colourful. So needless to say I loved the second Group B Fashion show on Friday kicking off with super colourful Robyn Mathieson. Other highlights included the overtly pretty, feminine pieces by Kelsey Genna, and Starfish's lovely dresses in delicious summery colours. For those liking those darker, edgier looks I was impressed with Moochi's ever cool combinations, Mardle's stylish tailoring and use of navy with pops of colour, Storm also wowed us with their amazing styling and fabulous mixes of sparkles and textured leggings. .

The Young designs did themselves proud and I loved the quirky flavour of their designs. My only disappointment with the show was not seeing the designers come out and follow behind their models. Especially the up and coming designers who were showing collections for the first time. Some bolted past the entrance to the runway so fast, we couldn't see who they were, let along what they were wearing! We wanted to applaud you in person. Ok, so the question is, from this abundance of beautiful clothing, what would I have chosen to take off that catwalk and wear immediately? Taking into account there was very slim pickings in my colours, I would love the Trelise Cooper brown beaded slip dress, the Robyn Mathieson wrap dress and the Julia Lynch cream trouser suit. Well done to the organisers of Wellington Fashion week for a stupendous effort, well done Wellingtonians for coming along to support them. I am already looking forward to next year's shows.

Stay colourful!
Trudi
www.wardrobeflair.com
www.facebook.com/WardrobeFlair
www.twitter.com/WardrobeFlair