THE BEST FROM DARWIN FASHIONS OF THE FIELD

By Darren Winningham | Tuesday, August 6, 2019

Well I have done it again – I have entered the Darwin Fashions on the Field realms again in 2019 – hopefully you will not be disappointed by my photos and interviews with the splendid lady who won.

Tatianna Hoffmann won the Darwin Cup Fashions on the Field competition dressed in a yellow and blue leopard print dress and peacock millinery head piece.

Fashions on the Field runner up Gina Cassimatis is a local Darwin milliner and finished making her elaborate hat at 2am Monday to compliment her stunning dress that was put together with the help of Parap-based dressmaker Irena Graeslim.

Madelaine Cvirn took out the millinery award with a bright red oversized bow inspired fascinator that complemented her red dress.

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Tatianna told me after she won the feature fashions event of the Darwin Races that she is self-taught dressmaker who comes from a long line of milliners and designers in her family.

She ironically won the Ladies Day competition in the same outfit.

It took the talented designer, who only sewed her first dress for the races in 2016, several weeks to craft this year’s outfit finishing it a week before debuting it at Ladies Day.

“I feel amazing, this is just incredible, I’ve been dreaming about winning,” she said.

“The fabric is from the Couture store in London. When I first saw this fabric, I fell in love with it I could not forget it.

"I was talking about the fabric for two of three weeks and when I looked back on their internet page there was only three metres left of the fabric. I thought to myself it was meant to be as I needed that exact amount of material to make my dress.”

“My hat is designed by Belinda Osbourne from Peacock millinery from Darwin”, she said. (This is my third Carnival and I recall this lady providing a previous winner’s headwear as well).

“I chose everything else like my shoes and my handbag to shiny gold to compliment my dress fabric – I just wanted to keep it simple and classic but still with a bit a shine and baboom boom.”

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Tatianna will head south in November to compete in Fashions on the Field at the Melbourne Cup.

She was overwhelmed telling me, “That was my dream – I dream about being in Melbourne and representing Darwin and I will make another amazing dress as I will be there for the whole week”.

I just had to ask Tatianna did she have an EXCLUSIVE for WINNO and HRO – any ideas for the dress and fabric for Melbourne Cup week yet?

She had a beaming smile and said, “I do not have the fabric yet but I did wake up a few days ago to an idea for one dress. I thought to myself the design is really extreme – and maybe a little Lady Gaga but, you know, if you are not risky then you are not going to know if you can win."

I am certain after the stunning outfit and fabric on display at Darwin she will be a force to be reckoned with in Melbourne come November!

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