The Catwalk in Muscat!

From Splash Fashion Show

The events described in this post took place sometime in late-October , 2011 in Muscat, Oman. For those of you viewing this through Facebook 'Notes', the original post is available on www.henrickatlarge.blogspot.com. It will enable you access to photo galleries and other multi-media material which don't transfer into 'Notes'


So what did you do this Friday  night(the equivalent of Sunday Arabia)? A question I am not used to being asked. Because, in the places I used to live this was a moot point. There was nothing going on normally during the week.  That is, if Matty Bobatty didn't have a party.  And Saturday was work.  This being the case, it was a really absurd question.  Being an absurd question, I had never really been asked it before.


But now, I really wish someone die ask me just such a question.  Because, I'd have a great answer for them.  I went to a FASHION show! Yes a fashion show, on a Friday! Not only that, but it was at one of the best hotels in Muscat.  A really swanky super-up-scale resort called the Shangi-La. I had a blast! It was a great time.

The show itself was put on by SPLASH, a Middle East modern-fashion house that (as far as I can tell), markets its wares to upwardly-mobile Arabs with money and limited experience in what cool is exactly.  So they tell them.

The Fall line was OK. It didn't knock me out. It wasn't special or awesome. The clothes and styles were, well, derivative.  But that is par-for-for the-course in these parts. The best part was the show itself.  highlights included:

• a lot of eye-candy
• said eye-candy was provocatively dressed
• a 40's inspired dance number by two attractive dancers dressed as stewardesses 
• A DJ that spun pretty great tunes throughout the show
• a interlude duet between the DJ and a live kit-drummer
• the fashions were also displayed by about 40 'average' looking people that won the privalige by lottery

Besides the show itself, the 'reception' was a lot of fun.  It featured a great little 'nosh' buffet, servants trolling the area with trays full of wine, and a dessert installation that had a wonderful assorment of decadent little treats.  The antechamber to the ballroom (where the show itself was held, was filled with some of the very young, up-and-coming Omanis and expat-locals on the scene.  Even though this is not what I'd call 'High-Fashion', it was truly an event which brought out some of Muscat's 'Glitteratti'.  It was definitely very "CIRCUS MAXIMUS' Plenty of people coming out, even on a Friday, to see and be-seen.  But like I said.... What did you do on Friday night?