Persistence pays off for Villa Maria Cult-Couture Awards winner

Persistence pays off for Villa Maria Cult-Couture Awards winner

Manurewa designer Visesio ‘Louis’ Thomsen proved that persistence pays when he took home the premier prize in this year’s Villa Maria Cult-Couture Awards with his garment Le Tatau Bride.

Louis has been after the award for the past five years and event manager Chantelle Whaiapu says he truly deserves the win.

“We’re thrilled to have a Manukau designer take home the premier award and even more so that Louis’ garment was chosen as he has been one of our most loyal supporters.

“He was up against some tough opposition this year with entries coming from as far afield as the South Island, Wellington and the Bay of Islands”.

Louis was a triple winner this year with his entry winning the Matrimonial Bliss category. His additional design, Futuristic Island Princess, also won the Manukau Designer Award.

Judges Rachael Churchward from MiNDFOOD magazine and designers Adrian Hailwood and Jaeha-Alex Kim described Le Tatau Bride as being "strong, beautiful and alluring in its use of Samoan concepts and design."

Successful 2007 designers Auckland’s Margaret Lewis, Maxine Wooldridge and Jeanine Clarkin received recognition again this year. Margaret’s Quilted Dream took home the On the Streets category and Maxine’s Blue and White Porcelain design won the Flight of Fantasy award. Jeanine picked up a highly commended in the Recycled Revolution category.

2006 Premier Award winner Donna Campbell made a welcome return to take out the top award in the Obviously Organic category with her design Hot Az.

A full list of winners is attached.

An initiative of Manukau City Council, run by Manukau City Arts with sponsorship from Villa Maria Estate, Villa Maria Cult-Couture is becoming recognised as an established icon on the fashion design calendar and is one of the feature events in the inaugural Manukau Festival of Arts.

This year’s awards were held over two sell-out nights at Manukau’s TelstraClear Pacific events centre. A special preview show on Friday night was followed by the grand finale and awards night on Saturday. Both shows were accompanied by top class entertainment including guest performances from Mere Boynton, Vivah and Stars in Your Eyes finalist Cindy of Samoa.

Proudly presented by Villa Maria Estate and Manukau City Council, Villa Maria Cult-Couture receives generous support from its category sponsors: Armourguard Security Limited, Datacom, Davis Langdon, Downer EDI Works Limited, Opus International Consultants Limited, GHD, Manukau City Council Waste Management and Meredith Connell.

ENDS


About the festival:
The Manukau Festival of Arts 08 is an inaugural event for audiences of all ages and backgrounds from around the Auckland region to experience the energy of the arts in Manukau through a diverse range of exciting festival events.

Between 30 October and 17 November the Manukau Festival of Arts will showcase more than 30 exciting events around the city – exhibitions, youth events, music, dance, fashion, comedy and a film festival. All the details are on www.mfa.org.nz.