Fashion Week looks like a lot, a lot, a lot of fun, but it's also an incredibly hard slog. It's impossible to tell who works the hardest over the week. The flip side of this slave-like labour is that when people clock off after 16 hour days, they're still running on stress hormones, so they end up playing as hard as they work. This makes for some pretty damn slamming parties.
To kick things off, PAM opened their Sydney store the Friday before fashion week. Salty sweet popcorn and boutique beer made a pleasant prelude to the fashion madness.
On Tuesday night, Neuw denim threw a massive bash at Oxford Art Factory, enlisting Modular kids The Seabellies and WIM to provide the tunes, and splashing about in dangerous style with free flowing shots of Patron tequila. It was an event that ruined a lot of people's Wednesdays, but from all reports, it was worth it.
On Wednesday Kirrily Johnston, Fernando Frisoni and camilla and marc all teamed up to hold an after party at a 'secret' venue. As you'd expect from three of the best labels in Australia, the result was madness. The secret garden turned out to be a venue that had been constructed by The Club (yep, it's a club called The Club) just for the night in a goldfish bowl glass fronted space that's usually a restaurant.
The entire venue was filled with real grass, park benches and picnic blankets were laid out, cheese plates were available for anyone to take (and were mostly consumed, contrary to what one may believe, by models) and there were girls in costume handing out treats like macaroons and truffles. A drag queen, a little person and a male model manned the door, and inside there was a live shetland pony wearing a garland of purple flowers. In an amusing (and not entirely unpredictable) turn fate, the grass triggered many a party guest's hay fever, so I can safely say, in a way that is not suss at all, that the event had people snorting and sniffing in the presence of a white pony.
On Thursday night the fashion set didn't have to travel far from their last show to get a glass of Belevedere. Josh Goot's runway show was held on the top floor of an East Sydney carpark as his party kicked on beneath it. Meanwhile Stolen Girlfriend's Club encouraged copious dancing at Chinatown venue GoodGod, flying Kiwi party outfit Pikachunes in for the occasion.
Finally on Friday we dragged our party shoes on for the last time to attend St Augustine Academy's wrap party, as, it seemed, did every model of the week. The event was held at The Backroom, which played host to an after party almost every night, but it was only on the last day that the crowd really packed in.