Long way from nowhere

Stolen Girlfriend’s Club “Welcome to Nowhere”
Air New Zealand Fashion Week 2009
Thursday 24 September

“You wouldn’t steal a car, you wouldn’t steal a girlfriend, you wouldn’t steal a goodie bag from the front row” boomed over the sound system set up throughout the eerie inner city Masonic hall to start Stolen Girlfriends Club’s “Welcome to Nowhere” collection. However it seemed that someone had stolen the show as it started an hour and fifteen minutes later than scheduled - despite the models all wearing not one but two or three wristwatches!



A tongue in cheek message said “Apologies for the late show. Someone pissed on the floor and we’ve been trying to clean it up,” which resulted in a few laughs and lightened the mood.

Walking through the upstairs rooms to new songs from the likes of The Horrors, Pixies and The Gossip, the nude faced models wore an array of interesting and unusual outfits. These ranged from full-length grey jumpsuits, woollen knickerbockers held up by string suspenders and hippie flares, through to tasselled military shoulder pads and a grey patterned fleece cape for the girls.

The boys’ ensembles were just as unconventional; they had them in legwarmers, scorpion embossed trousers, gold watches as neckties and dad-like long johns.

Inspiration for this collection was taken from all over the globe and is “a mish mash of ideas resulting in a nomadic biker gang of sherpa mountain climbers and their kidnapped glamorous trophy girlfriends”.

Add country and western hillbilly on top of that, as tassels and cowboy hats were common throughout.

“Welcome to Nowhere” wasn’t just a regular run of the mill catwalk show but actually entertainment for the evening, as the models were dressed in such a way that held the crowd’s attention for the entire event. First impressions were overwhelming and initially the wearability of the clothes was questionable. But on closer inspection these ladies and gentlemen were just styled very cleverly to add to the theme of “mish mash”, because individually speaking this collection contains some incredible garments that will surely prove extremely popular next winter.

The oversized cable knit sweaters and cardigans, tailored shirts and dresses, chunky scarves and ribbed corsets show a mature move away from streetwear and into a design category worthy of the world stage. Unique, distinctive and original, Stolen Girlfriends Club Autumn/Winter ’10 collection will no doubt be a sell out when it hits the stores next year.

Cream lace puff dress

Men's cable knit cardigan and button shirt.

Women's ruffled yoke grey jumpsuit

Aja Rock takes her front row seat, and like many guests, mistakes the boho tasselled hippie-chic goody bag for a cushion.

They wouldn't steal a goody bag

The designers walked to hearty applause after the runway show.

The finale.

They say that dreams are free, and sure that’s probably true for most people. But my dreams are proving to be a whole lot more expensive than expected as I’ve just added half of this new season to my wish list. Perhaps if I’m lucky that dream will get caught in the extra large dream-catcher that adorned the final model’s back as he marched down the runway, but somehow I doubt it. I’ll just have to make this dream become a reality myself.



By Olivia Boswell
Photos Kevin Robinson