Fitting in at the Perth Fashion Festival

     Tonight I got in touch with my inner fashionista. Well, such as she is anymore. The 2013 Perth Fashion Festival is in full swing highlighting local and national designers, clothing trends and size 2 fantasies. In its fifteenth year, it coincides with that other big fashion festival in London (England, not Ontario) in many ways: dates, pretension, impractical clothes, pouting models and dreamy glamor. 
   
      I have certainly given plenty of publicity to the Perth Fashion Festival on my weekly radio show but have never been to an actual event. So when I got out of work just at the time a free event in the festival tent was about to start, I seized the moment. Shooed away from the VIP entrance, I skidded in the commoner entrance just in time to get pointed to a few deserted chairs way high up off runway level.  They didn't give me the toys everyone else got: glow sticks and cheapie sunglasses. Probably startled (or horrified ) by my old geezer office clothing. Hey, my make-up looked good. This same sartorial statement kept me from getting  moved closer to the runway to fill in chairs for the photo opps  numerous photographers and videographers were waiting for at the end of the runway. No biggie. I was plenty close to the pulsating bass music and fog machines up there in the nosebleed section.

      Tonight's show featured clothing from stores in a particular shopping area. This is not high fashion but it has a place at festivals in cities outside the major fashion centers.  The festival's fashions need to be accessible to a wider audience in Perth than they do in Milan, Paris or New York. Of course there are the designer shows (none free admission) here but also kids clothing and the "upcycling" fashion parade consisting of outfits found at local thrift stores. It's all good.  So cue the DJs and start the action. Lots of slouching young models mincing their way down the white path in extravagant heels . Some forget to put on the I-hate-modelling-scowl and smile at the professional and amateur photographers. "Selfies" (taking a picture of yourself using your cell phone's camera) being all the rage , half the models are using smart phone cameras as props for the action either on themselves or with audience members. The models high-five, bump booties, shimmy or in some other way interact with each other as they pass on the runway. Bub-bub-bub-bub bubblebutt  the music booms. Is that a size 10 model out on the floor??!  Just one female model seems to eat three meals a day but the organizers recognize that not all of their target audience  resembles the human coat hangers who will wear the haute couture garments at the high-end events.  All of the male models looked quite normal.

      So what did I see?  Will I be running out and buying new clothes this weekend? Well, I did see one or two things I could imagine wearing...if they came in my size. I certainly know what to expect to see walking the sidewalks over the next few months. And it definitely was an interesting bit of theater in a world I usually don't inhabit. And that qualifies as a mini-adventure.