Stolen Girlfriends?  Stolen hearts!


You may have already read about the rain, the skanky pub, the jam jars for glasses, the wait – but forget all that now, it truly was ALL about the clothes.

“Welcome to nowhere” was a motif of the show and Stolen Girlfriends really did create an alternative nowhere place where cool country bumpkins roam and longjohns (with back fringing) are the new leggings.

So:  long knit dresses with clever and unexpected cutaways at the back – strong in charcoal and pretty in pink. A fine wool shirting in pale grey with a ruffled yoke – a pink cable cardi or grey legwarmers for a boy.

The ruffle treatment that was edgy in grey shirting becomes plain pretty in pale pink; then later the pink shirt morphs into a very pretty dress.


There’s a cowboy-yoked shirt worn with twine braces, then there’s a rockabilly with black tux jacket and white pintucked shirt – a beautiful white shirt for girls later in the show makes me suspect that SGC could even be a go-to label for fantastic ‘item’ pieces next winter, too.

Other straw-chewingly seductive details and garments:  crisscross front bodice lacing; an oatmeal knit courier bag and fringed shawl; the cutest red lobster motif; a tucked prairie dress in an in-theme calico colour or an unexpected bright blue; distressed velvet cutoff jeans for boys.  Oh and add fur trimmed booties to it all…

The minute the final jumbo dreamcatcher-sporting, nude torsoed, bespectacled boy walked off, I wanted to see it ALL again.

In the words of Bridget Saunders (who has been energetically tweating for Fashion Week itself):  “the right people got $30K at Fashion Week.”  I never thought I would find myself wanting a striped bodysuit with fringed epaulettes but Stolen – you made me do it.

View the runway pics here.

- Julie Roulston

Photography c/- Hilary Johnston