The stars shone brightly when the Maori culture centre, Te Hana Te Ao Marama, celebrated the rising of the Matariki constellation with a gala dinner and fashion and wearable art parade.
The centre, the name of which means "a new dawn", proved its place in the heart of its community when 160 people packed the dining room and later the meeting house for the sold-out Te Hana Te Ao Marama's Wearable Maori Arts event on Saturday.
While it attracted an enthusiastic crowd, the first competition of its kind had a small but talented pool of entries in its rangatahi (youth) and community categories.
One of several highlights of the evening was a stellar performance by the Auckland-based Te Ariki Vaine Pacifica Dance team.
The parade, which began with fashions from Bianca Hartley's Buy the Way boutique in Kaiwaka, finished with the wearable arts extravaganza.
Danielle Aldworth won Te Hana Te Ao Marama's Wearable Maori Arts Rangatahi Youth Section with her costume called 'It takes a community to raise a STAR child'.
The winner of the Community Section was Betty Poa with her trio of costumes, 'Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow', modelled by three generations of her family.
Highly commended in the community section were Ruby Edie Neilson for 'He Putiputi Pai' and Cherrie Hita for 'Whetu Marama'.
The Matariki event marks the first anniversary of the impressive Te Hana Te Ao Marama Maori Cultural Centre which Auckland Mayor Len Brown described as Northland's gateway to the super city. Saturday's event was partly funded with a grant from Auckland Council's Community Development Arts and Culture department. Council arts adviser Matt Blomeley said it was impressed with the Te Hana complex and its aims for the community.
About 4.1 million motorists annually travel through Te Hana, the gate to Northland, making it an ideal location for visitors to take their first step into northern Maori culture.
Te Hana Community Development Charitable Trust Trust drove the project, which was over 10 years in the planning, and chairman Thomas de Thierry and CEO Linda Clapham worked for four years unpaid to get the project off the ground.
They were guided in the site's development by elders from nearby Oruawharo Marae, an ancestral site for the Te Uri o Hau hapu of Ngati Whatua.
The complex features a replica palisaded pa, a tourism centre and marae-style buildings that can be visited by passing motorists, package tours, education groups and community organisations.
While progress has slowed at the multi-million dollar centre - which had hoped to employ many locals and offer fulltime kapa haka, traditional food, crafts and the carving school it opened with much fanfare a year ago - the facility still runs programmes and is a central focus and asset for the Te Hana community.