Related Content Competition itinerary and rules

THE FABULOUS new Weekend Post Fashion Challenge is being launched this weekend and is set to triumph our previous show-stopping fashion and modelling extravaganzas, all of which have launched many a national and even international career.

Weekend Post and J&B are calling catwalk queens and design divas – or daredevils – to sign up for our brand-new reality-style 2009 Fashion Challenge.

Weekend Post has had more than two decades’ experience in identifying the Eastern Cape’s most gorgeous models and springboarding their careers through ground-breaking competitions like Style Force, Faces of the Future and Images 2000.

We’ve also showcased the province’s most promising design talent – and will continue to do so with our exciting new initiative.

The search is on for models and designers who consider themselves style stars and are ready to think big, as in Project Runway big.

For starters, 15 female models with attitude are being sought. Prospective models must don their sleekest cocktail wear for the casting session at 4pm sharp next Saturday, November 7, at Coco der Mer at Dolphins Leap in Humewood, Port Elizabeth.

Bay fashion designers – from closet dressmakers to struggling students and even well-established fashion aficionados – are the other vital component of the Fashion Challenge, as they’ll pit their creativity against one another to secure a spot in the final round.

The design element of the competition involves designers submitting a storyboard on a chosen theme and then racing against the clock, and with limited money and fabric, to create an outfit for one of the models to command the catwalk in.

There will be three rounds and designers and models will be eliminated until only the top five remain.

“But this is reality, who knows who may make a comeback?” hinted event fashion director Barbara Robertson.

Designers may already start storyboarding for the first two themes: J&B Start A Party, and J&B Green Glam.

Our Fashion Challenge will mimic the hit reality series Project Runway, with fashion judges delivering scathing reports on designers and models who fall short of spectacular.

“They don’t call it ‘reality’ for nothing and reality bites,” added Robertson.

There will be cash prizes for each round, and winners from the first two rounds will move on to a grand finale where one sassy model and one red-hot designer will win an all-expenses paid trip to next year’s J&B Met in Cape Town.

The theme for the country’s premier “hot-to-trot” horseracing event is “In Full Colour” and Weekend Post and J&B’s winning designer and model will shine on the frontline of one of the fashion industry’s most anticipated summer parties.

Regional manager for J&B, Ray Hitzeroth, said: “J&B is dedicated to fashion and we are always willing to grow the industry”.

Models and designers must be older than 18 to participate. The closing date for design entries is noon on Monday, November 16, after which 15 designers aged between 18 and 35 will be chosen.

Read Weekend Post and visit www.weekendpost.co.za every Saturday for all the details, updates, the Fashion Challenge blog and not-to-be-missed reality TV-style video clips.