MELBOURNE Spring Fashion Week's first punters jostled around a stage set up outside David Jones's city store yesterday. Megan Gale and Emma Freedman bantered cheerfully for half an hour as models bared pale, goose-bumped spring legs in slim-fitted and silky draped frocks, their hair mostly upswept and spiked with tiny, sculptured flights of feather and straw. Among the models, a size-14 young woman walked in two chic frocks and hats and, refreshingly, did not trigger a single pointed comment about ''curves'', ''plus size'' or ''diva proportions'' by Gale or Freedman.

''Definitely not a mini, or a maxi,'' Gale cautioned about the ideal racewear hemline, apparently oblivious to the history she was making by ignoring a model the size of 80 per cent of Australian women, twisting elegantly in front of her. ''Just above the knee, or on the knee, or just below the knee if you've got the legs to carry it,'' added Freedman.

Precisely at that moment, a contradiction of chic little mini dresses appeared to blast their prim little theories off stage. But, no matter. There has been a healthy disconnect between racewear ''rules'' and reality since the last flush of young racegoers adopted spring racing as the mother of all social occasions several years ago.

Gale and Freedman bantered on about the leg-lengthening illusion of nude-coloured shoes, the practicality of clutch purses with optional shoulder chains (better to manage champagne AND form guide) and the tricky spring arts of colour-blocking, hat-wearing and, for chaps, ''channelling your inner girl'' with a fuchsia pink silk tie - all proof that Spring Fashion Week is well and truly under way.