After several months of planning, attempting to alter grey marl track pants to look like Alexander Wang, manically scouring op shops and saying ‘I have nothing to wear!’ about 8375409248657 times, I eventually borrowed a vest designed by my friend Lisa Twomey. Lisa creates amazing garments from vintage and recycled materials, and the vest I borrowed was based on an old leather waistcoat with military buttons; Lisa added shoulder pads draped in chains, peacock feathers, and created a beautiful patchwork on the back from pieces of velvet, lace, gold chord, and other unique fabrics. It was an honour to wear it, thank you so much Lisa!
So. It was the night before the big day. All was going according to plan. I had something to wear. I had my bags packed. I set my alarm for six a.m. and drifted off into a sound sleep and woke... with the plague.
Ok, really I just had a bad cold, but I spent the entire bus trip to Sydney with tissues shoved up my nose (v unfashionable) and my cowl scarf pulled over my face, firstly to hide the tissue scenario and secondly to try and avoid infecting my bus buddy Angela. We began calling it my ‘shroud’, but later realised that they actually put shrouds on dead people so it probably wasn’t the choicest word.
So while Angela went to explore China town and collect our friend Mimi from the bus station (she was arriving a few hours after us) I was sleeping in our hotel room and desperately willing myself to get better for the next day. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me!! It was my fashion week debut (of sorts) and I would have a sore red nose and a croaky voice, not to mention that I felt like crap! The girls came back at around 11pm, and when they saw how miserable I was they made a late night trek to Coles to buy me Lemsip and Vitamin C and oranges and Butter Menthols and anything else that might help me get better.
The next morning I woke up feeling much better, and I dosed myself up on cold and flu tablets and set to work getting dressed. In the end I wore Ang’s skull pendant, she wore my earrings, we all wore Mimi’s hair spray – I think every beauty product imaginable could be found in our hotel room that day. I distinctly remember Ang saying ‘I have eyebrow product if anybody needs it’.
Looking back, that is what I remember the most about my Fashion Week experience – if you needed something, someone would lend it to you, or at least help you find it, whether it was the gorgeous vest from Lisa, Lemsip from Coles, eyebrow product from Ang, or black underwear for Anthony’s models. That was our next task. The models had no underwear.
We met Anthony and his friends Petrina and Greg at Circular Quay, and while the rest of us stood and gaped at the likes of Susie Bubble heading in to the morning shows, Angela ran off and bought several pairs of black jockeys. But while that crisis was averted, another one had arisen – the airline had lost one of Anthony’s bags which contained most of his headpieces!!
There was nothing we could do except repeatedly check in with the airline, so we lugged the bags upstairs and started to unpack. After that I can’t really remember all that much until the end of the show. It was several months ago but also I think I just got really, really stressed (so I hate to think how Anthony felt)! We were sharing models with other designers which meant we were all packed in backstage together, and there were several shit fights over irons and steamers, and then Mimi and I had to run off and pack Anthony’s gift bags, and then I was trying on Anthony’s ‘Ballio’ headpiece and it got stuck in my hair, and every time I tried to take a photo someone would scream at me ‘BLACK SAFETY PINS!!!! WE NEEEEED BLAAAACK SAFFFFEETTYY PINNNNS!!!’
We saw Alyssa Sutherland, the RAFW ambassador – she had come to watch Anthony’s show and she came backstage to say hello, and she absolutely TOWERED above all the other models! Aussie Vogue editor Kirstie Clements was also standing near me at one point but I didn’t realise and *gasp!* apparently she had stray threads hanging off her jacket. I didn’t see it! All I know is what I was told.
After the show we hastily packed up and went to the bar. Angela, Mimi and I got our make-up done at the MAC make-up bar, and given that there was no food to be found anywhere in the building (bloody starving fashion types), we quickly got a bit tipsy on free champagne. At some point while we were sitting there (drunk), Alex Perry walked past. The day before he’d presented his all-singing, all-dancing, multimillion dollar runway show at Fox Studios, to more than a thousand guests.
In the end Anthony’s collection was quite well-received by the Australian press, although unfortunately most coverage tended to focus on the fact that he sent out men in skirts (SMH journo Richard Jinman described it as ‘transvestite grim reaper’) rather than his magnificent sculptural jackets or metallic and plastic detailing. But as Petrina pointed out when we were having schnitties and beer at the pub later on, ‘if everyone liked it, you’d be Alex fucking Perry’.
Check out Anthony's blog and the official looks from his RAFW collection, 'Egyptian Super Heroes', here.
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