When ABC Far North breakfast presenter Kier Shorey was asked to emcee TAFE's fashion parade, a wave of fear swept through TAFE. To prevent any possible embarrassment, they sent two of their best men to help Kier shop his way through op shops in Cairns.

hen I help compere the Tropical North Queensland Institute of TAFE Gala Fashion Parade this Thursday, I’ll be doing something I’ve never done before. I’ll be wearing clothes not purchased by either myself, someone related to me or someone I’m sleeping with.

I believe this will officially make me a model, a fact which will astound many. Particularly my ears.

Pictures: Kier's makeover

Instead, I’ll be wearing what graduating students Jack Bakker and Heinrich Lutz found for me in the charity stores of Cairns.

If this sounds like a quixotic task, don’t be concerned. If anyone can make me look fashionable adorned with cast-offs of Far North Queenslanders, it’s these two men. Jack won Fashions on the Field at this year’s Cairns Amateurs and Heinrich was selected as a guest student at the 2009 Fashion Festival in Brisbane. They know what’s this year’s black.

Nevertheless, I approached our shopping spree with trepidation. Like many men nearing middle age, my relationship with fashion is fraught. There was a time when we were on speaking terms, but these days, fashion and I don’t talk.

This is obvious because I don’t own a pair of pointy-toed shoes.

Heaps of blokes out there will know what I’m talking about. It’s been a couple of years since the pointy-toes hit the mainstream and the prior me would’ve bought a pair by now. After all, I ripped my jeans and bought half a dozen waistcoats in the early 90s, the hem of my shorts reached my ankles by the late 90s and all my shirts had stripes by the turn of the millennium.

These days, my wardrobe consists of two-thirds vintage shirts (because my wife likes them), one-third T-shirts with silly jokes on them (because I’m an idiot), two pairs of medium-length shorts, one pair of untorn jeans, a pair of thongs and a pair of sneakers. Oh, and a leather jacket, but I only use that to grow mould.

So why have I given up and not bought pointy-toed shoes?

Maybe, it’s because I live in Far North Queensland, where if we had any sense we’d all be getting about in our undies. Or, maybe, it’s because I work on the radio, which can be a "pants-optional" occupation. But more likely it’s because I’m annoyed that I had three pairs of pointy-toed shoes back in 1986 and I threw them all away.

Now I’ve got to buy them again?

I understand that this is not a new experience. It’s probably the 25th time that pointy-toes have returned to fashion since they first hit the scene right after the Black Plague hit Europe, although don’t ask me why they came into fashion then – perhaps, they made it easier to kick the dead people out the way.

I also understand that this is exactly what my dad thought when I started wearing pointy-toes back in the mid-80s, although he called them winklepickers. Again, don’t ask me why – apparently, it’s got something to do with eating snails.

But it’s the first time it’s happened to me. And it makes me feel old.

The point was driven home when Jack and Heinrich turned up to the first Lifeline shop wearing dinner jackets over T-shirts and tight jeans. And Billy Joel sunglasses. Here was the uniform that I wore every weekend during high school as I stood, dripping with sweat, hoping to defraud my way into the House on the Hill nightclub.

Then something strange happened. Within a few minutes of being in their presence, their energy, their vitality and sheer joi de vivre started to affect me. Suddenly, I could see the second-hand clothes from their perspective and the racks of pleated slacks from my nightmares looked somehow different. Somehow new.

That’s when I remembered why I used to enjoy fashion.

Sure, adherence to fashion can bring bad things. It can encourage exclusion and derision and in extreme cases, self-hatred and self-harm. And I’m not for a moment going to defend the often terrible activities and influences of the fashion industry itself.

But fashion can also bring good things to people’s lives. It’s a shared experience, one driven by an unspoken consensus. It speaks to the clan within us, makes us feel a part of a larger whole. It can bring us together, give us confidence and certainty of place.

That’s exactly what it does for Jack and Heinrich. It’s also what they want to bring to the world of fashion and as the Gala Fashion Parade will show, they and the other 15 students graduating from the TNQ TAFE have the skills and the determination to do just that.

One last thing. I’m not suggesting that we all run out and buy items of clothing we wore in our teens or our 20s. It’s a natural process for our sense of style to become frozen at some point, leaving a few blokes wearing safari suits until they come into fashion for a third time.

I’m just reminding myself how fun it can be to dress up. And that I wasn’t the first to wear pointy-toed shoes.

• Kier’s final outfit as chosen by Jack and Heinrich features a Hugo Boss shirt, Tarocash pants and Windsor Smith shoes. Coincidentally, that’s exactly what Kier wore to his high school formal in 1988.

• The TAFE fashion parade is on Thursday from 7pm at the Hilton Hotel. Tickets $24, students $15, bookings through Ticketlink, ph: 4031 9555.

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