twilight zone

There have been so many occasions where I have chuckled at the irony between working and home life – the times where I have been dressed to the nines to attend an event only to have my daughter throw her bottle up on me just as I’m about to walk out the door. Or the time I got my hair done thinking how nice it would be to have it immaculate all weekend, only to have her excited (yet uncoordinated) hands grab fistfulls of it, smearing avocado through it, rendering the blow wave completely useless.

As I write this I have just spent the past two hours consoling my tearful daughter, who at 7 months appears to be going through that joyful right of passage – teething. She displays all the telltale signs – physical and emotional and yet every day, the little buggars fail to appear. It seems she is going through all the pain now, for the pearly whites to make their grand appearance later. Isn’t it hideous? Our textbook child that slept through the night has turned into something of an insomniac and the sudden sleep deprivation is killing me. And fashion week has only just begun.

I’ve been to every New Zealand Fashion Week since its second year in 2001. My first role at Fashion Week was during my final year of study, as a minder to visiting buyers and media. It was so much fun – I chauffeured buyers and media to appointments and took them shopping. The following years, after starting my first magazine job at ACP, I participated as media and sat in the pews feigning an air of authority while I dissected the trends from the runway. Air New Zealand Fashion Week is exciting, but also exhausting so to start this busy week on the back foot does not bode well.

There is one consolation – the M.A.C and ghd VIP room where makeup artists and hair stylists are on standby to attend to our grooming needs. You can bet I’ll be needing and taking, all the help I can get! Last year the room was an absolute success – the perfect place to regroup, refresh and revive between shows so it’s awesome to see it return this year. There have been other grooming rooms – the L’Oreal one was the first, then they died away and disappeared for a couple of years. Thank god for M.A.C and ghd bringing it back.

And there’s Pammy – who will no doubt provide much fracas when she makes her well publicised appearance later in the week.

Who will tumble down the catwalk? Who will steal front row seats? What will visiting media think? What labels will the attending buyers snap up? Who will have the best hair and makeup? Which show will be the most outrageous?

We’ll know very soon! I’ll be updating daily.

Tamsin xo