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New venue for the races, old controversy in the fashion competition

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By Louise Macdonald

The Dubai World Cup 2010 took place at the end of March at the newly constructed venue Meydan. It would have been a challenge to have it ready in just one year (located on the same site as previous world cups, Nad Al Sheba). A furiously constructed affair that must have involved nations of workers, done with the flair and style of Dubai!

On the day of the race a beautiful grandstand, hotel, restaurants and race track were ready to greet the crowds. Big slick air conditioned grandstand foyers welcomed the thousands of guests coming from all over the world. Yes, I mentioned the air conditioned because it was 42 degrees Celsius outside!

Style Stakes fashion competition participants had to "suck up" the heat, being hosted outside, in front of the grandstand. With plenty of style and creativity on display, the event organisers presented a line up of fashion heats that filled on and off the stage like clockwork.

In 2010, the judges were:

• English milliner Philip Wright
• Dina Jreissati from Agora Marketing
• Katie Heskett from "Ahlan" magazine
• Louise Foster from "Harpers Bazaar" magazine.

Not so many wide brimmed hats were worn this year: small berets, sculpted headpieces from straw and fabric, and, of course, Dubai's favourite, explosions of feathers adorned heads! With a wide choice of colour, judges chose women wearing muted tones of grey and soft peach and animal print for the best dressed candidates:

• The best dressed couple wore soft peach with a touch of shot grey in the gentleman's tie.
• The best dressed woman wore grey and white.
• The best hat was pink complimented with a grey dress and black shoes.

These subtle choices reflect the colour trends worn by the Melbourne Cup (Australia) fashion winners at the end of 2009.

Fashion competitions are often open to controversy, and the Dubai World Cup Style Stakes competition was no exception. With 2010 being the second year that Philip Wright has judged the Style Stakes competition, it is also the second year that the winner of the best dressed woman has been wearing a Philip Wright hat.

The runner up in the best dressed woman category was wearing a chiffon leopard print dress with a pill box covered in red flowers. Milliner Valerie Corona won the best hat prize in a soft pink hat made from fabric petals trimmed with flowers and stripped ostrich feathers.

There was a very vocal man shouting his complaints to all the judges involved, questioning that a professional designer/milliner should be allowed to enter into the competition. This was a common objection in Melbourne, until the organisers offered a separate professional competition to designers and restricted the public competition to non professionals (paid or sponsored models not allowed). Professionals are no longer competing with their customers.

Things can get pretty heated at these events and perhaps can be taken more seriously than they are:

• Style Stakes event organisers were accosted by disappointed girls who had missed the registration for the heats, so wanted to go straight to the finals.
• A young woman who had spent five hours (over two days) choosing a hat at BurJuman could not believe she did not make it into the finals, so snuck onto the stage in the finals and presented herself before the judges!

Others take it less seriously and enjoy the chance to have a bit of a strut and some fun with their friends. I loved seeing the hats of course and especially enjoyed observing how people have put their outfits together!

The fashion competition came to a close around 6pm with still plenty more horse races to be run. There were the fireworks, opening ceremony and then, at 11pm, Elton John and Carlos Santana performed to close a great event.

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