It’s WOW time again, and this year’s show is the most amaz­ing and extrav­a­gant yet. But was it too extrav­a­gant this year? I’ll get to that lat­er. Please note that this post will con­tain spoil­ers about the show, so if you’re going, don’t read it until after­wards okay? 

The Welling­ton­ista has a lit­tle pre-WOW game. We like to pre­dict the com­mon themes that’ll be in the show. This year we thought there’d be lots of laser-cut designs (espe­cial­ly after last year’s win­ning entry used that to an extreme), and the rem­nants of the steam­punk trend. We were right on both accounts. Let’s put this one down to col­lec­tive con­scious­ness.

The supreme win­ner was Hylonome by Mary Wing To of the UK. It’s a horse-inspired piece made of leather, not unlike 2008 win­ner Ornithi-Maia, anoth­er detailed, leather worked, ani­mal-inspired design with a spear. In the media room after­wards, I found it dif­fi­cult to look at the horse head. Its eyes… they looked into my soul.

After the jump, more win­ners, the pit­falls of extrav­a­gance and the New Zealand where it’s always 1953.

Ok, first the chil­dren’s sec­tion, this year with a food theme. As always, this cat­e­go­ry attracts entrants that are less wear­able art and more hal­loween cos­tumes. But for­tu­nate­ly the judges choic­es were for more cre­ative works. The win­ner was Pret­zel­la, by Sean Puruck­er of the Unit­ed States. I liked this design because it matched the shapes of pret­zels, both loops and sticks, with the shapes we nor­mal­ly see in fash­ion. And also? If if you get hun­gry, you can eat your skirt.

The glow-in-the-dark sec­tion is a fave of mine because it’s always rool trip­py as (although Joan­na would still argue that it’s too much of a hold­out from WOW’s Nel­son years, and raves are like, so 1996, man). But this year’s theme was sur­re­al­ism, upp­ping the stakes. There was a strong flo­ral theme this year, includ­ing the win­ner, I Ris(e) by Sue Ced­er­man of Motue­ka. This cre­ation with a giant iris flower with an eye­ball that emerged from the top. This also marks anoth­er theme for 2011 — designs that are a bit scary.

The Cre­ative Excel­lence sec­tion had the theme “under the micro­scope”. I was hop­ing for bogies, but no one had seen fit to incor­po­rate snot into their design. But there was plen­ty of blood and bio­log­i­cal ick­i­ness to stir the emo­tions. The win­ner was bone-themed, Hide in my Bone Shad­ow by Mar­jolein van der Wal of the Nether­lands. It was like a corset/­con­trol-top undies but with a mas­sive ver­te­brae-like struc­ture around the back. Again, anoth­er slight­ly scary look­ing one.

Now, a strange thing hap­pened in the open sec­tion — the on-stage enter­tain­ment was almost too good. The tra­di­tion dis­play of the wear­able art tra­di­tion­al­ly works like this — peo­ple mod­el­ling the wear­able art make their way around the out­side of the stage, while some form of enter­tain­ment takes place in the mid­dle of the stage. This year the Roy­al New Zealand Bal­let was involved and they were amaz­ing. But here’s the thing — I realised I was main­ly watch­ing the danc­ing per­for­mance and was­n’t pay­ing atten­tion to what should have been the focal point — the wear­able art. It’s an odd crit­i­cism to have to make, but I think per­haps the enter­tain­ment should have been a lit­tle less amaz­ing.

The win­ner of the open sec­tion was Her­ma­cea, a giant lob­ster cos­tume by Jan Kerr of Para­pa­rau­mu. There weren’t many New Zealan­ders win­ning this year, which is per­haps an indi­ca­tion of the inter­na­tion­al reach of the com­pe­ti­tion now.

The men’s sec­tion had the theme of rein­vent­ing the groom. It was pre­sent­ed with the Bil­ly Idol­’s “White Wed­ding”, which seemed to get the audi­ence very excit­ing. The most tit­te­lat­ing cos­tume was a man naked but for a bowtie and a bride’s bou­quet cov­er­ing his gen­i­tals. Now, you know how WOW is a fave with mid­dle-aged ladies? Well, just imag­ine their reac­tion to this guy. Shrieks of delight.

The win­ner was anoth­er part­ly nudie entry — Sir Lace Alot by Julie Braw­ley of Nel­son. Play­ing on a theme of male van­i­ty, this piece was effec­tive­ly a trans­par­ent wed­ding dress. And speak­ing of van­i­ty — there were three pea­cock-inspired pieces in this cat­e­go­ry. All were rather extrav­a­gant.

The avant garde sec­tion had even more extrav­a­gant enter­tain­ment. The amaz­ing Ben Mak­isi and Aviale Cole sang opera, and the Roy­al New Zealand Bal­let were back for more. At that point I just gave up on watch­ing the wear­able art. This was a splen­did per­for­mance and I did­n’t want to take my eyes off it. Joan­na thought it was a good way for the audi­ence to get  great val­ue for mon­ey, since you get so many dif­fer­ent shows togeth­er at once. Plus, she enjoyed see­ing bal­let dancers in tra­di­tion­al tights and tutus for once, because the RNZ Bal­let are nor­mal­ly doing excit­ing­ly dif­fer­ent things like Car­men. The win­ner of this sec­tion was also the supreme win­ner, the hor­sie Hyrolome.

But also worth men­tion­ing in this cat­e­go­ry is the run­ner-up, Reflec­tion by Erna and Karl Van Der Wat of Auck­land. While Joan­na reck­oned this looked like an IKEA vase (and, yeah, it kin­da does) (and she did­n’t think that was a bad thing!), it got a big cheer and I would­n’t be sur­prised if the wins the audi­ence favourite vote.

Final­ly, the Kiwi Icons sec­tion. And things got a lit­tle nuts here. Again, it was anoth­er pre­sen­ta­tion that dis­tract­ed from the wear­able art, to the point where I did­n’t even realise there was wear­able art being pre­sent­ed until about halfway through.

A bro­ken-down old shack took cen­tre stage, with a bunch of peo­ple milling about in Kiwiana cos­tumes. And there were sheep — real live sheep, and a well-trained farm dog. This is the fan­ta­sy New Zealand, where it’s always 1953, there are no cities, and there is no depres­sion in New Zealand. The audi­ence loved it.

Ginette McDon­ald was camp moth­er, and out of the shack came… May­or Bob, com­plete with his orange jack­et. Ginette had a chat with him, which got kind of deep when he let slip that it’s been so awful in Christchurch that every­one, at some point, has expect­ed they were a gonner. Bloody hell. Dif­fer­ent notable New Zealan­ders are going to come out for a chat every night.

Then, as if things could­n’t get any more Kiwi, John Rowles appeared and sang “Ten Gui­tars”. I think there was swoon­ing.

Hilar­i­ous­ly the win­ner of this cat­e­go­ry was made by an Amer­i­can — Isabelle by Lorene Ire­land. It turns out there is kitschy shell art in oth­er coun­tries too.

The show end­ed with Slice of Heav­en, so let’s take that oppor­tu­ni­ty to remind you of the spe­cial fundrais­ing screen­ing of Footrot Flats: A Dog’s Tail at the Embassy, this Wednes­day at 6.30pm, to sup­port the Welling­ton SPCA.

But the biggest ques­tion is — famous peo­ple, what did you think of it? Well, noto­ri­ous tweet­er Stephen Fry was there and he opined:

@stephenfry
Wow, in every sense. Just attend­ed one of the great evenings of my life. Kiwis should be so proud. Sim­ply fan­tas­tic. worldofwearableart.com

Oh yay! Though non-Wow-attendee and friend of the Welling­ton­ista Sam Scott had a dif­fer­ing opin­ion:

@samuelfscott
Anoth­er year, anoth­er WOW. It’s the 7’s for mid­dle aged morons. #ihate­newzealand

It should be not­ed that the Sev­ens is also the Sev­ens for mid­dle-aged morons.

But the best celebri­ty sto­ry hap­pened at the end of events. One of the organ­is­ers had to put a ban­ner up on stage. On her way to the stage, the ban­ner’s stand col­lapsed, leav­ing her scram­bling to get it back togeth­er (shame!). She was near the VIP tables up the front, and two male din­ers leapt to assist her — Peter Jack­son and Orlan­do Bloom. What’s a girl to do?