Dunedin will strut its stuff under the international spotlight this week as it lays out the welcome mat to fashion aficionados, designers and media from New Zealand and around the world for iD Dunedin Fashion Week.
The week is launched tonight,
emerging designers from New Zealand and overseas will present their collections at the Edgar Centre on Thursday night, and established New Zealand designers, Otago Polytechnic graduates and guest designers will showcase their wares on what is billed as the longest catwalk in the southern hemisphere for the headline fashion shows on Friday and Saturday nights.
Local models - alongside some from Auckland and this year a group from Shanghai - will have the responsibility of walking those designs down the catwalk, and a team of local hairstylists, make-up artists and light and sound technicians will work behind the scenes all playing their part in ensuring the shows' success.
A huge range of fashion-related events will also take place through the week - from lectures and workshops, exhibitions and theatre productions, to designer sales, make-up demonstrations and makeovers, fashion showcases and collection launches.
The Golden Centre Mall is the fashion ''hub'' for the week, but other venues for activities will showcase both the city's heritage buildings and modern glamour, from the heart of the CBD to the St Clair Esplanade. Events run from dawn to dusk - and include fashionable breakfasts, couture lunches, high tea workshops and cocktail soirees.
Fashion week is an international institution - whether it is the catwalks of New York or Paris or Milan - and the work of the various event committees through the years has certainly put the Dunedin event on the global fashion map and calendar, and highlighted the city's creativity and style.
Many of the city's designers who will be showcased this week - such as Nom*D, Carlson and Mild-Red - have made it big on the international stage, and others - such as Tamsin Cooper, who has secured an impressive partnership with the Royal New Zealand Ballet company - have achieved national recognition.
Dunedin models have also helped strut the Dunedin brand further afield. Twins Nellie and Elza Jenkins became household names when they appeared in New Zealand's Next Top Model and have headed to London hoping to break into the international modelling scene.
All of that is no mean thing given Dunedin's size and relative isolation. It is exciting we can enjoy celebrating our success on the world stage - and equally satisfying that we can enjoy such a high fashion event at home.
And we are lucky in the variety on display in our city and province as well. While this week fashion is to the fore, the past weeks have been a smorgasbord of sporting events - from the twenty/20 cricket final, the opening Highlanders rugby fixture, the Warriors rugby league match against the Brisbane Broncos, A-League football between the Phoenix and the Melbourne Heart, and the England and Black Caps cricket test - and there is more sport to come.
The city is also gearing up for the Dunedin Fringe Festival which brings the quirky, provocative, mad-cap and entertaining to the city for 10 days.
In the meantime, it is worth commending the iD Fashion Week committee - headed by chairwoman Susie Staley - for the hard work that has gone into proving yet another reason for Dunedinites to be proud.
The event receives significant council funding as it faces an ongoing problem of securing a naming sponsor. But the first financial assessment of the event showed almost $2 million is spent in the city on retail, services and accommodation, and it generates an estimated $6 million worth of global media exposure, so it seems ratepayers are getting a return on their investment.
But mention should also go to the many local sponsors and volunteers who, as is often the case, ensure the show - now in its 13th year - will go on.
