U.S.-based artist designs costumes for Swiss Winegrowers Festival

Catherine Zuber, a U.S.-based artist of world renown, is the costume designer for the most spectacular and colourful event in French-speaking western Switzerland: the Fête des Vignerons, or Winegrowers Festival.

Catherine Zuber, a U.S.-based artist of world renown, is the costume designer for the most spectacular and colourful event in French-speaking western Switzerland: the Fête des Vignerons, or Winegrowers Festival.

The festival will begin late July in the lakeside town of Vevey, located in a region where wine growing has a long tradition.

The main idea behind the festival, which is staged once every generation and has its roots in the middle ages, is to reward and celebrate the workers of the vineyard. This year, the top four or five vine tenders will be honoured and crowned “Kings of the Festival.”

The costumes designed by Zuber will be a key part of the festival. Her costumes, shown on the stages of major operas in the United States, are said to have style and sensuality.

For the Fête des Vignerons, Zuber went back to the old days of the festival, following up on traditional motifs and colour schemes.

She then adapted and modernised those designs to come up with a style suited to an event that will mark the last winegrowers’ festival this millennium.

The event — which will begin on July 26 and last till August 15 — is expected to attract tens of thousands of spectators who will come to see a spectacularly colourful pageantry, full of music, mime, dance and drama.