Her name is Lola. She was a showgirl

Kia Ora from sunny/rainy/sunny/rainy Auckland, where frockwriter is, once again, the guest of the organisers of New Zealand Fashion Week. Due to other commitments, we only touched down yesterday so missed some early shows. Beyond the event's spectacular new digs at the newly-unveiled Viaduct Events Centre, what has struck us so far is the fact that while it's not at all unusual to see Oz models on NZ runways, on this occasion, they seem a little more prominent than usual. To wit, Krystal Glynn, the face of Zambesi's Spring/Summer 2011/2012 campaign and also the covergirl of New Zealand Fashion Week's official 2011 handbook (bottom). Glynn is already en route to New York so won't be attending. Another Aussie will be opening tonight's Zambesi show - Lola Van Vorst. The name sounds familiar? A contestant on Australia's Next Top Model Cycle 5, Van Vorst has barely done any modelling in the interim, moving instead behind the camera as a photographer. But she suddenly finds herself much in demand in front of the lens. 

Coles steals the show

coles 'aisle avant-garde' show via lifestyled

Back in March, in reviewing a fashion show staged by Kiwi hipster collective Stolen Girlfriends Club at the New World supermarket in Auckland's Victoria Park, Pedestrian noted "We can only hope that next time we're at Coles it's this eventful". They didn't have to wait long. Last week, Coles ripped off the idea for its 'Aisle Avant-Garde' presentation in Sydney in collaboration with Sunsilk, showcasing the work of 12 UTS students who were each asked to create a gown that incorporated Sunsilk's logo and colours. Above and below are a few shots from last week and, bottom, a video of the SGC original at New World, a New Zealand supermarket chain owned by Foodstuffs. Needless to say, Coles doesn't take quite such a laissez-faire attitude when it comes to anyone shoplifting its goods. Although given that Coles apparently rebranded its Australian supermarkets as Coles New World in 1962 - the year before New Zealand's New World chain was founded - perhaps there's 50 years of trans Tasman tit for tat at play here. 

Stolen Girlfriends Club has ordered 1000 jam jars for its Sydney party, but there won't be any Stolen Generation T-shirts

stolen girlfriends club AW11/kent vaughan

Next Thursday, Auckland hipster collective Stolen Girlfriends Club will stage its second Sydney shindig in five months, this time to unveil a new short film shot by renowned Kiwi snapper Derek Henderson, to promote SGC’s new Heavy Metal jewellery line. The film stars photogenic Kiwi lovebirds Dempsey Stewart and Jasper Seven modelling the inaugural collection, We Are Ugly But We Have The Music (below). Frockwriter has previously documented SCG’s predilection towards serving alcohol in jam jars at events and next week will be no different with, we are told, 1000 jam jars ordered for the occasion. One thing we won’t be seeing at the event, however, is an “I belong to the Stolen Generation” T-shirt, as appeared on SGC's runway in Auckland last month. 

Fight Club - Stolen Girlfriends Club Autumn/Winter 2011

backstage at stolen girlfriends club AW11

Stolen Girlfriends Club is New Zealand’s Ksubi. Founded by surfers (Dan Gosling, Marc Moore and Luke Harwood), it’s a streetwear specialist and has a cult following back home, evidenced by the massive turnouts to its hipster magnet shows. Last night’s presentation at the Mercury Theatre, Auckland’s oldest surviving theatre built in 1910, was a case in point. Frockwriter had to negotiate a queue half way around the block to get in. Inside, platters of of jam jars awaited the post-show revellers, while in the claustrophobic backstage area, models were already drinking out of them. As they milled around, the hair & makeup team applied fresh sweet peas and cigarettes to the girls’ messed-up hair and bruisers and hickies to the guys’ eyes and necks. The theme of the show was ‘Last Night’s Party’ and the mood the SGC trio was trying to conjure was the walk of shame of a bunch of kids after a big night out. It starred a stellar Australasian cast that included top Kiwi names Dempsey Stewart, Ella Verberne and Michael Whittaker (above). 

Stolen generation

A really quick post to clock the awesomeness that was tonight's 'Welcome to Nowhere' show from Stolen Girlfriends Club. The last show that I saw from this Auckland hipster collective was last year. And while it was well-styled, with a massive turnout, the distressed jeans, cutoff shorts and graphic T-shirts just, well, didn't really seem to have that much of a point of difference to every other jeans-and-t-shirts outfit on the market. Not so this new collection, which seemed to be three parts Little House on the Prairie, one part The Clan of the Cave Bear, with nary a pair of jeans in sight. In their place, some extremely cute, chunky cable knitwear, charming Liberty print western shirts - some with gold pyramid studding - a suite of sweet dresses, including sexy knit singlets and some faux fur chubbies, such as the mulberry version sported by NZ It girl Zippora Seven.

The cast also included rising NZ male modelling star Levi Clarke, who was still 16 in May last year when he starred alongside Seven - also 16 at the time - in a controversial RUSSH magazine editorial. The magazine's depiction of underage models, alcohol and implied sexual activity prompted an investigation by the Australian Classification Board. The matter was eventually dropped.

As frockwriter walked through to backstage, to spot alcohol laid on pre-show, we wondered just how many under-18s might have been on deck. One male model boasted that he had consumed four Steinlagers.

Apologies for the lack of posts from Auckland. I am doing some coverage via Twitter, but sadly that is restricted to the wifi-enabled on-site shows (I was not sufficiently well-organised to sort out a suitable, and cost-effective, off-site alternative).

I am also doing a photo diary for one publication and a city guide for another and find myself extremely short of time. Will post more in the days to come.