They appeared well mannered and quietly reserved, the women who lined up and walked (after they were warned by organisers to walk very slowly) into the iD Designer Sale on Saturday.
They did not make much noise either; even with a couple of hundred packed into the Dunedin Railway Station porters' lounge, there was little more than a gentle hubbub over the click clack of hangers shifting on clothes racks.
The small army of women and a few male hangers on had marched in funky boots, chunky heels and colourful coats into the room bursting with sale priced goods from designers like Company of Strangers, Nom*D and Claire Bloom, as the first event of the 2015 iD Dunedin Fashion week got under way.
But the veneer of respectability hid the reality of the designer sale.
As one shopper reported to the Otago Daily Times, after being squeezed from a scrum near the Nom*D collection, it was all elbows and shoulders at the coal face of the clothes rack.
But the dark arts of womenkind are not performed blatantly.
''Subtle elbows,'' was how she described it.
It was said to be mayhem in the communal changing room.
The event began with members of the Golden Centre Club Couture - an exclusive club for paying members only, set up for the fashion week - getting half an hour to pick over the fashion on offer from 9am.
Twenty minutes before the doors opened to the general public at 9.30am, more than 100 people were lined up along the front of the railway station.
Event organiser Anita Greene said she had been preparing the sale since last year's closed.
That involved putting together a collection of Dunedin's best designers, giving them both the opportunity to clear out ends of lines, and to sell to a different clientele. For shoppers, it was an opportunity to buy designer fashion at bargain prices.
''I think this year's been fantastic, because we've got such a great line up,'' Ms Greene said.
''We've got all of the right people.''
