Next weekend, November 6 & 7, the 8th annual Villa Maria Cult Couture event will be held at the Telstra Clear Pacific Events Centre in Manukau. Black fashion director Rachael Churchward is, for the third year running, judging the event alongside Adrian Hailwood. The third judge this year is Showroom 22's Murray Bevan, and if you have never been, we can't speak highly enough of Cult Couture as an event and a place where fashion meets art, culture and peformance. The show, put together by Chantelle Whaipu and her crew at Manukau City Council is as spectacular, in a true school Aotearoa way, as any event on the creative calendar. Every year Cult Couture is backed by the region's great winery, Villa Maria Estate, and the region's undoubted raw creativity, cultural interpretation and talent comes to the fore. The fact that the Villa Maria Cult Couture design awards are open to fashion students and graduates, emerging and established designers and artists of any age, from all around New Zealand, just exemplifies the spirit of the event itself. So step outside the square and take a trip down the Southern Motorway next weekend. You won't regret it...
