SHOW REPORT FOR THE 2007 MONTANA WORLD OF WEARABLEART™ (WOW®) AWARDS SHOW
A new way to experience art and fashion was created in 1987, when Suzie Moncrieff came up with the idea of taking art off the wall and adorning the moving body. That world now attracts designers from the UK, USA, India, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, Iceland, Israel, Dubai, Australia and New Zealand. Over one third of the 2007 entries are international injecting a variety of cultural perspectives into the event and turning many creative eyes towards New Zealand.
31 International designers flew into Wellington to see their garments come to life on stage, alongside an audience of 33,000.
Gladys Perint Palmer, Executive Director of Fashion from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco was the 2007 international guest judge and says of WOW®, “Eat your heart out John Galliano, Hussein Chalayan, Thierry Mugler, Vivienne Westwood and John Paul Gaultier”.
The Supreme Montana WOW® Award winner went to first time entrants Paula Coulthard and Ursula Dixon, both from Auckland. Their farming backgrounds’ inspired their creation, ‘Rattle Your Dags’ made from recycled wool bags, with a message for fashion victims, “Don’t be a sheep blindly following the flock”.
WOW® judge and fashion designer Trelise Cooper said of the garment, “It was unique, creative and like nothing I had seen in WOW® before”. Fellow judge and sculptor Neil Dawson agrees, “It was amazing how it held its own on the stage. It’s a complex costume but moves well. I really like the layers and the dags, and that the materials are what you’d find in a woolshed”.
‘Rattle Your Dags’ was one of 155 garments to perform on stage amongst seven unique sections of dance, theatre, puppetry, trapeze and non-stop entertainment.
A child’s bedtime story transformed into a wild stomping monster dance with strange characters entering on tricycles to open the HP Children’s section.
Fairy lights and Indian dancers pranced through the American Express Open section with garments ranging from giant spoons from India, a walking vase from Holland and an abstract sculptural depiction of Multiple Sclerosis from Dubai - which was the 2007 WOW® runner up.
A respectful exchange of stark shirts and uptight coats between local Maori and early colonial settlers launched the Air New Zealand South Pacific section. Many garments juxtaposed contemporary materials, like clothes pegs, with traditional costume techniques, such as Maori weaving. ‘Rattle Your Dags’ graced the stage in this section.
A woman in a voluminous skirt, which fanned out to cover the stage, and then take flight with four swooping beings, opened the CentrePort Shades Of White section.
Comic footage of blustery weather was the backdrop to the Scenic Circle Hotels’ Man Unleashed section, which moved onto a fabulous dance to Queen, followed by men breaking out of grey suits to reveal flirty skirts and fishnet stockings. The crowd-pleasing climax had Bella Kalolo belting out ‘It’s raining men’.
Spectacular trapeze artists and dancers twirled in the dark to open the AT&T Illumination section, which stunned the audience until the stage became ablaze with a mirage of glow in the dark WOW® garments.
The opening theme of the Tourism New Zealand Avant Garde section had glittering chandeliers and mirrored mosaic costume characters all sitting at an opulent banquet. A stunning baroque inspired mirror façade acted as the backdrop to this visual feast.
All seven sections came together to make Wellington’s third and the 19th Montana WOW® Awards Show a tremendous success that attracted 150 media including CBS Evening News from New York, Marie Claire, L’Officiel from India, First TV from Germany, Canada’s Elle, China’s Modern Weekly, U from Hong Kong, Notebook from Australia, and Zink magazine from the US.
WOW® runs from Thursday September 20th to Sunday September 30th at the TSB Bank Arena in Wellington.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Montana Wines from New Zealand are avid supporters of creativity, and are the naming partner of the WOW® Awards Show.
New Zealand’s Montana World of WearableArt™ Awards Show is more than an art exhibition, it’s more than a fashion show and more than an awards show. It’s an extravaganza that twists conventional perceptions of both art and fashion and weaves them into a performance that has been described as “Mardi Gras meets Haute Couture at a Peter Gabriele concert directed by Salvador Dali”. There is nothing quite like it around the world and New Zealand is proud to have this incomparable event on local soil.
For further media comment please contact: Gabrielle Hervey gabrielle@worldofwearableart.com Ph: 021 548 965
For further media details please contact: Angela Barnett & Loren Aberhart media@worldofwearableart.com loren@worldofwearableart.com
SHOW REPORT FOR THE 2007 MONTANA