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?