My first fashion week!
Yessssss!
Ive always been out of town, or in the wrong town when I get invited to these things so I was super thrilled to be invited by Mercedes Benz Life on the opening night as well as Craig Port and Fabiani for the Saturday night.
I hope you like pictures, cause I took a lot of them.
Opening night was great, and as I’m no expert on womens fashion, I had my friend Sadie there who is, muttering something about hemlines and paneling. I just shot pictures of stuff that made me think “Wow, thats rad”. We only managed to catch 2 shows, the first by Gavin Rajah which I thought was pretty epic and filled with great theatre ( This show has caused a little controversy though and there has been some cries of plagiarism, but you can read more about that here) The second, a very Japanese inspired shoe by Stefania Morland it was a little crazy but loads of fun. Here are some highlights from both of them.
Roll on Saturday night for the two big mens shows I’de been waiting for. The first was Craig Port with a collection inspired by Craig’s recent trip to England where he pays homage to London with “The Great British Summer” collection.
Truth be told, I was a little surprised by this collection. Don’t get me wrong, I think Craig is a great designer and I own lot’s of his stuff, but he really nailed it with this show.
The colours were all very muted, lots of pastels, and a great use of Camo, there was also lots of texture coming through in lightweight knits and some quilting. I’m quite excited to see this collection hit the stores.
No show is complete without a swan song, and once again, Craig Port did not disappoint. The show culminated with a troop of mint green models complete with flower garlands, quite a vibe that, but it worked.
The last show of the night and of Mercedes Benz fashion week 2014 for that matter was the Fabiani menswear show with their Fabinia Cafe theme, I say show but I do mean collection, because unfortunately it wasn’t much of a show.
I’ve been thinking long and hard on how to report back on a collection that left me feeling a little “meh” like I had seen it all before. And rather then smile and nod, I’ve decided to be honest, after all, why have an opinion if you’re not gonna have an opinion right?
Now, I’m no fashion expert, so I’de definitely like to start off by saying that. I have no formal fashion training, I just have an eye for it and know what I like, so take everything I say with a cup of salt. There were lots of great pieces in this collection, most of them featured above, but none of them ‘wow’ or different, and I don’t mean different from each other, I just mean different from any collection preceding it. This is fashion week right? So, unless you’re doing something completely radical with your jeans and polo’s, maybe don’t feature them on the runway, because well, they’re EXACTLY the same as last years…maybe just a bigger logo on the popped up collar.
Again, don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the Fabiani stores, I think they’ve showed the importance of tailoring to the common man and still stock some of the most incredible mens shoes you’ll find anywhere in the world, I’m happy to shop there any day of the week. But this was the problem, I felt like I was doing exactly that, shopping, or at the very least browsing a live version of the catalogue.
In the end it was an incredible experience, I loved every moment of it and consider myself incredibly luck to be a part of it, thank you once again to everyone who hosted me.
Okay. Stay fancy.
