Three mem­bers of the Wel­ling­tonista are already glee­fully plan­ning our out­fits for the open­ing of the Montana World of Wear­ableArt Awards Show in on the 24th of Septem­ber at TSB arena.  The huge mar­ket­ing push has begun with ads pop­ping up near the air­port and the details of the WOW wander are being hammered out as I type.  The show is worth around 10 mil­lion dol­lars to the Wel­ling­ton eco­nomy and we will no doubt see cre­at­ive lunges for our atten­tion on a par with ‘that ice­berg’ and ‘those reap­ers’.  Let’s hope they do Wel­ling­ton proud with more cre­ativ­ity and less branded bumpf. 

Last year the supreme award went to Wel­ling­to­ni­an Nad­ine Jaggi and this year sees Wel­ling­to­ni­ans dom­in­at­ing the field again with 40 out of the 165 gar­ments from loc­als.  Last year Aunty Helen (or her COMMS people) did a mighty job of writ­ing a speech on the fly but although I am sure the awards will be “World Class”™ I am not sure that we need John on stage with giant paua encrus­ted key for the occa­sion this year (but if he wants to give the paua dress anoth­er out­ing.…)

The press release shows the scale and cre­ativ­ity of a few loc­al entries:

  • Leonardo Da Vinci’s many tal­ents as a skilled paint­er, sculptor, invent­or, math­em­atician, draughts­man, fash­ionista and sci­ent­ist are hon­oured in Heath­er Wallace’s extraordin­ary entry, Da Vinci’s Dan­dies.  The Wel­ling­ton indus­tri­al design­er has fash­ioned an entry that needs to be worn by three men, modeled on the draw­ing of the Vit­ruvi­an Man, “cel­eb­rat­ing Da Vinci’s amaz­ing and diverse tal­ents in a the­at­ric­al and eleg­ant way.”  Wal­lace was run­ner up in the 2007 Centre­Port Shades Of White Sec­tion.
  • Hun­dreds of coins from dif­fer­ent coun­tries have been hand stitched into the bod­ice of Kate Smith’s gar­ment, Do Your Arrears Hang Low?, to sym­bol­ise the import­ance of hold­ing onto your cash in an eco­nom­ic down­turn.  The art and fash­ion stu­dent believes the reces­sion, “is a big prob­lem, yet people are still spend­ing and ignor­ing it” and has cre­ated a large white elephant’s head on her gar­ment to ham­mer home this point.  
  • Emma Whiteside was smit­ten with the Eng­lish Queen Adelaide (1830 – 1849, who, sur­pris­ingly for roy­alty, hated unne­ces­sary expendit­ure) and has fash­ioned a regal 18th Cen­tury gown out of dis­carded auto­mot­ive radi­at­or cop­per.  The indus­tri­al design stu­dent at Vic­tor­ia Uni­ver­sity has been cre­at­ing things out of radi­at­or parts for years as her par­ents used to oper­ate a radi­at­or man­u­fac­tur­ing plant.  “I used to pol­ish up the best pieces with nail pol­ish.  The men in the fact­ory thought I was crazy,” con­fesses Whiteside, who spent over 200 hours sew­ing togeth­er indi­vidu­al cop­per radi­at­or rosettes for her gar­ment, Queen Adelaide.

 Sold out signs are mush­room­ing on the WOW site so get in now if you have been pre­var­ic­at­ing.