Editor’s note: Inside our Cup Week shoot
by Metropol | October 15, 2025 8:30 am
Welcome to my love letter for our 2025 Cup Week shoot with The Crossing. We shot on a rain-turned-to-shine day in the city’s retail playground. As always, this was a labour of love between countless local creatives with one goal: to showcase and celebrate the most anticipated week on Canterbury’s calendar.
This year, we wanted to push the boundaries of what Cup Week looks and feels like. It’s more than getting dressed up in beautiful things – it’s the busy preparation, the pampering beforehand, and the post-event pleasure, (a smash burger, perhaps). The Crossing is home to all that and more, a premium shopping space filled with retail and wellness spaces, beauty salons, and exquisite dining. I know I’m not alone in thinking this is one of our city’s best achievements post-earthquakes.
The Crossing’s considered mix of luxury local designers and boutiques to worldwide brands means your Cup Week wardrobe is a bounty of opportunity.
Instead of traditional fascinators, headbands and boutonnières, we enlisted Tholsie & Co, The Crossing’s on-site florist, to create headpieces and earrings out of real flowers and plants. Orchid earrings, succulent headdresses that you can, quite literally, replant in the garden after wearing – this was an incredible exhibition of fresh, all natural alternatives with such wow factor. One of the country’s most-loved names in style and, luckily for us, our shoot stylist, Jessie Kirk connected each beautiful element from fashion to flowers and brought this to life. Read more about Jessie, her journey beating breast cancer, and being awarded Fashion Quarterly’s 2024 content creator of the year, from page six.
This shoot anchors our annual Cup & Show Week feature, which captures just how much life these events bring to our city. I also spoke with Addington Raceway’s 2024 ‘Best Dressed’, Gemma Kirk, (who is not related to Jessie Kirk). She returns to the fashion competition this year as a judge – we both can’t wait to see what contestants will wear come November.
So, soak up one more month of (somewhat) calm before the best kind of chaos begins. I’ll see you out there soon!
Nina Tucker, Metropol editor
Source URL: https://metropol.co.nz/editors-note-inside-our-cup-week-shoot/