Narcissism is on the hoof. Don't breath deeply in case you suffocate on flattery. This is the event where a self-referring set of fashionukkahs suck up to each other and shoot ego.
Some people have come to look at the clothes but most have come to look at each other.
There is a man wearing a horse-riding helmet over what looks like a Manchester United sock and a woman who is wearing a red splotchy outfit with fur that could be roadkill and girls with vermilion mouths slavering over cellphones. A girl proffers a hand that looks like the foot of a small bird to a man wearing a bathing cap with red curls attached. "You look genius," she says.
The place is filled with people who call themselves fashion bloggists (which means they get free tickets), who have very little idea of the history of fashion. When I mentioned The New Look to one, she had no idea I was talking about Dior's 1947 ground-breaking collection that changed the face of fashion forever.
Trend is treacherous because it always wrong- foots you. Many of the people here left home thinking they were the cat's whiskers, only to discover they were dogs' breakfasts. The best dressed are black men in perfectly cut suits. Really good fashion should give one a sense of reflection and resonance. The front row traditionally reserved for fashion editors doesn't inspire confidence. One woman is dressed as the Princess of Cooch Behar.
The fashion shows themselves pass in a blur, some lovely stuff and a lot of malignant plumage. However, there are designers who loosen a bolt. I loved Suzaan Heyns for her Voortrekker meets French Resistance fighter look with its perfect craftsmanship and lack of compromise. The boots were from Mr Price with the laces taken out and the tops turned back. Each outfit was described. Jayden wearing powder-blue suspender details is described as someone who "does not like monkeys, not one bit" and is studying to be a Montessori kindergarten teacher.
I bet there'll be a lot of fathers enrolling their children at her school.
Kluk CGDT went for a clamour of diverse references, with a brass bed, a child, and a backdrop featuring the obligatory two retro cars. They published a special edition newspaper hyping their own brilliance and comparing themselves to Dior and Chanel.
Ruff Tung, the name should have warned me, had a go at a sort of Avocado Ritz, Durban Beach Front, white polyester with gold accessories look. It was actionable.
Jenny Le Roux, Queen of Cape Town fashion and owner of Habits, says: "Stefania Morland's show was beautiful." Sadly, I missed it.
Broadly speaking, the themes throughout seem to ricochet between schoolgirl and slut. There was a lot of Haute Meisie, grown women dressed as little girls, which makes one wonder about the sexual proclivities of men.
David West, with his run-up-by-loving-hands-at-home look, tried another old trick - using models that were old, fat or looked as if they had a touch of Asperger's syndrome. His clothes looked exactly like the ones my mother made me on her old Singer sewing machine and which were directly responsible for my never getting a rich husband.
Throughout, everything seemed to be just the wrong length, too short or too long, and there was very little good tailoring, the bedrock of couture, or perfect accessorising. A rosette on the side of the head just makes you look like a gymkhana pony.
The whole thing retched up the question: Isn't it about time we rethought the fashion show? What are they for? Are they mere entertainment platforms? If so, we need more than Julie Andrews singing A Few of My Favourite Things. Are they to seduce buyers? If, as market research suggests, the average woman buyer is 40-plus, is it likely she is going to pony up good money to look like a member of a charismatic church choir in the Congo?
People have tried over the years to make runway shows more companionable, more user friendly, but in the end few of us have anything in common with a 2m-tall girl with arms that look as if they could be pulled out of their sockets. Who invented that extraordinary walk, an orthopaedic hiccup with emphasis on pelvic expressionism, what journalist Tanya Gold writing in the Telegraph calls the "here-are-my-genitals mince". Who said that all models have to stride around looking furious as if they had just been ticketed for speeding.
Are we as woman credited with so little imagination that we can't visualise what a two-bit bikini within a float of tulle will look like on someone who has the body of a semi-circular table? Can we still be taken in by cheap disguises such as parasols, confetti and balloons and a slew of indiscriminate visuals and lofty Nietzsche-inspired labelling: My fashion can only be determined in the context of art. The words "free spirit" and "timeless" are used ubiquitously.
And another thing, where were all the established designers this year? Habits, Hip Hop, Errol Arendz.
Gavin Rajah, the designer who started Cape Town Fashion Week, says: "It's time for a huge overhaul of where fashion is going in this country. I am all for supporting young designers, but it is silly to put on inexperienced designers and expect them to survive. Fashion shows are not entertainment platforms; they are for selling clothes."
Most people believed the Joburg fashion week knocked the socks off Cape Town, where the shows seem to flag the fact that we are far from a united nation. Perhaps it's time to stop mau-mauing the fashionistas and produce good clothes that brush the wings of beauty and knowledge and are not benisons to the quirky god of the avant-garde.[
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