WORLD OF WEARABLEART AWARDS IN WELLINGTON ARE WOW By Antony Phillips Wellington, AAP - It's all about the sheep in New Zealand. After all, there are 40 million more sheep than people.
And now the nation's famous woolly blonde reigns supreme as queen of the world's premier wearable art awards. The Montana World of WearableArt Awards, or WOW, has designers and tourists flocking to Wellington (subs: last show is Sunday September 30) with more full houses and more overseas entries than ever.
The city crackles with creative energy as the artistic splendour spills out from the official shows, watched by 33,000 people, and onto the streets in true festival fashion.
This year, one third of the more than 300 entries came from offshore, with Australian designers trebling in number to 39 and one waltzing home with a major award. But the Supreme Award was scooped by two first-time entrants from Auckland with a stunning quilted garment based on the humble sheep, which drew gasps of admiration when it was revealed by a model sashaying regally around the catwalk before a packed TSB Bank Arena on Wellington's waterfront. Having taken in the elegance of what can fairly be described as a walking masterpiece crowned with horns, few could fail to miss the humour in its ovine-inspired design and name.
Rattle Your Dags - Kiwi slang for telling someone to move faster - is, quite remarkably, almost entirely constructed of recycled wool bails. It made its mark in the keenly-contested South Pacific category not only through the intricate design by Paula Coulthard and Ursula Dixon but also with their clever message to fashion victims: <And to win a major award at WOW - which has grown to become a multi-media spectacular of costuming, dance, music, sound and light - you have to come to town dressed to kill.
The creative competition comes from the US, the UK, India, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, Iceland, Israel, Dubai and, of course, Australia and New Zealand. International media coverage grows each year as word spreads that this is not just another runway show but something truly unique. This week, wearable art is being paraded before the eyes of New York's CBS evening news, Elle magazine from Canada, Australia's Notebook, and Mumbai's L'Officiel, among others.
Audiences are served a visual feast - part performance with bodies winging from the rafters ala Cirque du Soleil, part contemporary dance, part music and light show - all in the name of what is, in essence, a fiercely-contested competition as WoW strengthens its global rep as the Oscars of the wearable art world. The children's section is a riot of strange characters from the surreal world of dreams and nightmares, including a bed with a monster living under it, a duvet demon and a scary Brothers' Grimm stack of books with a child stuck inside. Inspiration in the South Pacific section went from the winning Rattle Your Dags to a mythical Maori Taniwha and striking entries representing the tone and texture of the Australian bush and its sunburnt interior. The stunningly-choreographed Shades of White section moved some to tears, while the Man Unleashed parade moved others, mostly women, to quite excitable displays of emotion.
Western Australian sculptor Cheryl Linaker, a first-time entrant, took the Illumination Illusion category with her gorgeous, glowing work Flowers of The Sea, inspired by the Great Barrier Reef and made from springs, foam, paint and willow sticks.
For Australian designers accepted for competition, there is even an international freight company sponsor which packages and delivers their precious, often delicate entries for free. WOW's two-hour-plus show does not disappoint, which is just as well, as visitors to Wellington come expecting big things since the city has shamelessly turned the event into a week-long party. There are performance, fashion, food, street theatre and music spin-offs from WOW happening daily.
It works perfectly in Wellington, an intimate city with cultural, cafe and nightlife precincts all within a few minutes' walk of each other. It wasn't always this way for WOW, with the first show opening to just 200 people who paid $10 each, 19 years ago. That was across the Cook Strait in the artsy South Island town of Nelson, where WoW's founder and director, Suzie Moncrieff, was living and working as a sculptor.
Moncrieff and the rest of WOW's creative team are still based in and around Nelson, where there is now a WoW museum, but the show has well and truly outgrown its small-town roots, increasing in splendour and size each year. <The Supreme Winner was an absolute standout amongst spectacular competition, she says. < <World of WearableArt Awards: Tickets go on sale around March through the WoW website and sell fast. Prices start at around $NZ65. Visit www.worldofwearableart.com. * The writer visited Wellington with assistance from Positively Wellington Tourism. AAP pjg \NZP
