#175 Jaeha

Sitting in the church before the Jaeha show began was without a doubt my most reflective Fashion Week moment to date. Organ music piping into the church almost reduced me to prayers but I made do with a modest genuflect. Other less reverent members of the audience were seen quaffing champers. "It's a bit early isn't it?" I remarked to one of the waitresses. "No, no, it's a champagne breakfast," came the reply. Then I paused to think... Perhaps during Fashion Week the holy communion wine is transformed into bubbles in a form of sacred alchemy. It's food for thought.

The organ changed to Quindon Tarver's Everybody's Free - a fitting song for the setting; some of you may remember it from the church scene in Romeo and Juliet. Out glided Vanessa Milde; eyebrows and skin powdered white, the true Albino monarch (reincarnated as a brunette).

During the course of the show the music dictated the pace; at times graceful then frenetic, funereal then celebratory - case in point the male model rolling down the catwalk in a blanket-sized stuffed-toy fox. Who needs fur? Jaeha's inspiration was a new world take on an old world theme after all - Russian opulence. In his own words, "I needed a super big scarf but I wanted to be more comicky about it."

I'm a big fan of anyone who doesn't take themselves too seriously, and Jaeha's tongue in cheek style coupled with the church setting made the show pleasing to the eye and chicken soup for the soul. Not a bad choice of venue for acoustics either: the audience's whoops when the designer took his bow echoed magnificently. Bravo!

Photos by Michael Ng