PS: Imogen Anthony tries to fill celebrity void at Australian Fashion Week

With the army of self-appointed social media fashion "influencers", brand "ambassadors", stylists, bloggers, and let's not forget the floggers, who descended on Australian Fashion Week in recent days, there was one name that just about everyone involved was attempting to avoid: Imogen Anthony.

In the celebrity void left behind this year with the distinct lack of big-name stars to grace the runway shows (in previous years we had the likes of Cate Blanchett, Jerry Hall, Bianca Jagger, Linda Evangelista and Elle Macpherson jetting in for festival of the frock), the door was left wide open for the arrival of Anthony to take centre stage.

And exactly WHO is Imogen Anthony? Indeed it was the question echoing around "faaaarrrrshun week" as bemused and befuddled magazine editors, buyers, photographers and reporters tried to make sense of the blonde wearing the gimp mask and DIY couture who was strutting from show to show, positioning herself in front of the media pit to make sure her haphazard get-ups were photographed.

"Is she a stripper?" one fashion editor whispered to PS as Anthony, wearing thigh-high boots, pimp hat and a mangy-looking acrylic fur, sashayed past, leaving a plume of cigarette smoke and what smelled like freshly sprayed Impulse in her wake.

Models Roberta Pecoraro, Emma Balfour and Anneliese Seubert backstage at Christopher Esber Fashion Week Show.

Well, not quite. Anthony's greatest claim to fame is that she dates radio's King of the Kids, middle-aged shock jock Kyle Sandilands, and has a penchant for taking her clothes off on social media.

But now she will be known as the nobody who ambushed Australia's most prestigious fashion event and turned it into the world's greatest "selfie" moment.

But the diva routine was getting a little tired by day three. After plonking herself down in someone else's seat in the front row of the TAFE students' fashion show, Anthony was politely asked to move by the seat's rightful occupant, who just so happened to be Fashion Week's co-founder Lorraine Lock who pioneered the event.

Lock attempted to explain to Anthony that she was in the wrong spot. Indeed Anthony was actually meant to be sitting way back in row five.

Maxime Sokolinski, who walked the runway at a Gucci show during Milan Fashion Week in February, brought some celebrity credentials to Sydney.Credit: Getty Images

Anthony, who apparently had her "personal stylist" accompanying her, spat the dummy, shouting "f--- this!" before storming out.

In all the drama she left her purse behind. Lock had no idea who she was or who owned the purse. A quick search of the contents revealed a driver's licence photo of a make-up-free, frizzy-haired girl but it bore little resemblance to the heavily made-up woman upstaging fashion week.

Imogen Anthony seemed unable to recognise the humour when gently teased about her outfits, in particular this unusual mask.Credit: Ryan Pierse

PS hears Anthony dispatched her pursed-lipped stylist to retrieve her purse, its contents intact.

Anthony maintained her rage throughout the week, launching various expletive-riddled late night rants on her Twitter feed, apparently unable to recognise the humour when gently teased about her outfits, in particular that oddball gimp mask.

Designer Kym Ellery was home for a retrospective of her work.Credit: Cole Bennetts

Meanwhile, the rise of the social media fashion "influencers" appears to have peaked, though what to make of the gaggle of Instagrammers of questionable provenance who shoved their way into the front row of Michael Lo Sordo's show?

As they jammed they way onto the long bench, their arrival left several legitimate fashion buyers and editors precariously hanging on to their positions, buttocks firmly clenched, only to witness the gatecrashers harvesting the freebie gift bags like a plague of locusts.

Imogen Anthony (right) was keen to get in front of the media throughout Fashion Week.Credit: Brendon Thorne

A big tick to the designers who went against the grain and used a few of the more "seasoned" models on their runways, not in the least the fabulous Yvonne Tozzi, a top Sydney model from the '80s and mother of today's catwalk queens Cheyenne and Tahyna.

​Tozzi, 59, a cancer survivor, walked for Thomas Puttick, while fellow designer Christopher Esber wheeled out two of the greats of the 1990s, former supermodels Emma Balfour and Anneliese Seubert, who spent their careers walking for the likes of Givenchy, Dior, Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent. These days they are both mothers and live their lives far away from the catwalk.

A model poses backstage ahead of the Thomas Puttick show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Resort 18 Collections at Carriageworks.Credit: Getty Images

For Australian fashion designer Kym Ellery, Paris has certainly lived up to its reputation as being the city of "love".

Ellery, in Sydney for a 10-year retrospective on Wednesday night, touched down in her former home town with a new man on her arm: handsome French musician Maxime Sokolinski.

Further investigation revealed the long-haired bohemian is a good friend of Hollywood star Elle Fanning and that his sister is French actor and singer Stephanie "Soko" Sokolinski, who was most recently romantically linked to Hollywood star Kristen Stewart, their relationship effectively "outing" Stewart as a lesbian.

His were the sort of celebrity credentials the likes of poor Imogen Anthony could only dream about, but it least she still has Sandilands to go home to.