WOW season kicks off today, as the city turns into the World of WearableArt.

The Montana World of WearableArt shows kick off at TSB Arena tonight, with the awards show on Friday night. The Wellingtonista Will be there to report on the 2010 winners and general goings-on.

Most of the shows are sold out, but there are still a few $50 "restricted view" tickets left to most shows – a good option if you’ve always wanted to experience the extravagant WOW show.

But as always, there are other ways of experiencing the magic of WOW.

WoW designer Susan Holmes has a number of her previous entries on display at various locations around the city, incliding the Museum Hotel, TSB Arena and the airport.

Various Wellington retailers are getting crafty with their own version of WearableArt on display, complete with goodie bags and other prizes for lucky shoppers.

And coming up on Sunday 3 October at Te Papa is Get Set Create, a one-hour challenge for WOW designers to come up with a creation.

So strap on your bizarre bra and get down with the WOW.

Update: MyGalaxi will also be open on Sunday 26 September.

You know how we had a blue moon this New Year’s Eve, right?  And how that is kind of a freak occurrence when you think about it, right?

Well, this Saturday is the blue moon of markets. There are two only once-a-monthers and one super-special, souped-up weekly market being held in our fair city.  It won’t matter if the skies ain’t blue because they are all held indoors (very sensible).

First up, the Frank Kitts Underground Markets are holding a special Indie Fashion and Jewellery themed market in the Wilsons carparking building under Frank Kitts Park on the waterfront.  This market has been putting in the hard yards over winter, hocking their wares weekly and building up a dedicated following.  Their regular stallholders will be there plus a range of special guests.  Check out their latest newsletter for details.

Next up is the fourth outing of Mygalaxi Art Markets based in the basement of 39 Dixon Street.  These markets are keeping it arthouse under the firm leadership of Arlo Edwards (best Art Experience don’t you know) and the benevolent patronage of James Gilbert at Photospace who is the wind beneath a few creative wings.  Long live the patron, we say!

The newly launched New Zealand Fashion Museum aims to preserve and celebrate New Zealand’ fashion history.

It doesn’t have a physical location, instead displaying exhibitions in pop-up locations.

Its first exhibition is Looking Terrific – the Story of El Jay, looking at the career of fashion designer Gus Fisher and his label El Jay.

El Jay held the exclusive New Zealand licence for Christian Dior designers, bringing elegant frocks to New Zealand women wanting some Parisian chic.

The exhibition is on display at Kirkaldie and Stains, which aptly enough was one of El Jay’s stockists back in the day.

The Looking Terrific collection spans 40 years of El Jay, from the ’40s to the ’80s, with all garments borrowed from private collections – often the original owner.

The exhibition runs until 3 October, and can be viewed inside (and outside) Kirks on Lambton Quay.

OO lucky handmade shoppers, the much loved and short lived Tinakori Road pop-up shop has popped up again, but this time in a different location.

With a  mix of designers in for a day and another mix in for a week and some designers in for the whole time, it’s one of those places that’s worth a weekly visit.

You can find the Pop-Up Design Store at 24 College street from now till October 17th.

The Masked Barfly has been busy in the last little while soaking up the scene and hanging around the hors d’oeuvres in our buzzy little town.  As could be expected the Masked Barfly favours fecund environs where one can imbibe a good compost of booze, blood and guts, gossip and culture.
 
 Some bullets of buzz after the jump:

This week in Wellington you could be geeking out, smelling the flowers or listening to some sweet, sweet music to celebrate the start of Spring.  We have two girlie gigs to tempt you with this week featuring three sets of ladies that are definitely in bloom.

Claire Terry of Madame Fancy Pants fame is performing with City Oh Sigh at Mighty Mighty from 8.30pm this Wednesday.  This lady has been steadily adding strings to her bow and treasures to her jewellery box, not to mention growing a young’ in with her spare time.
She will be there with her pipes, her guitar and her charms. 
Always a pleasure.

City Oh Sigh features the lovely Kate (cello, vocals) Sarah (keys) and Catherine (trumpet, guitar, vocals) bringing the musicality and the sweet, sweet harmonies.  These ladies are tight and truly committed to the musical arts.  You can see them hot on Claire’s heels from 9.30pm. 

Details on the invite here. ($5 on the door).

Lisa Tomlins is doing it for herself on Sunday, front and centre as part of the Soundstage season at Downstage with backing from Twinset.  These Soundstage events are one-offs that allow you to go to the gig and focus on the music in a theatre environment, a real treat for the performer and the audience.  Lisa is a generous artist who is coming into her divalicious own after lending her talents to others and putting in the hard yards learning her craft.  Worth. Every. Damn. Cent.

WCC Watch is a local website that does what it says on the tin.

They drew our attention with some kind words a few days ago.

If you haven’t voted yet, they seem like an ideal source for additional reading to inform your decision. Their recent archives have a lot of good material on the candidates.

If you have voted, we expect they’ll be doing a good job post-election in monitoring what those naughty councillors get up to.

It is reassuring to know that the salon did not die in 18th century France, gathering together in RL to converse, spar, eat, connect and display our intellectual charms has not gone out of style.  Recently we have had Pecha Kucha, Ignite and more BarCamps than you could throw a pack of PostIt notes at.  Today the open source inclined have been playing with their toys at Software Freedom Day and this week is full of occasions to be witty and pretty and geek (slash nerd).

This week brings Nerdnite#2, another Tuesday night dinner and Webstock will be bring us mini-marvels and the big unveil of the speakers for 2011.

All of these events are non-geek friendly (plenty of room for fraghags), all you need is an eclectic mental diet and a love of creativity and innovation, so don’t be shy.  Nerdnite looks to be taking eclectic to a whole new level with geoengineering, stories, witchcraft, and food on the menu at Bettys Bar this Monday.  It seems the case that people self-identify as geek but get twitchy when refered to as "nerds", well perhaps this word is going to be reclaimed as well if this Nerdnite thing catches on.

Besides, geek appears to be contested term, this week we have had @BR3NDA tooting about privilege and computers:

Tonight at the Burgundy Room at Bodega you can witness the third live outing of a new band fresh from recording their demo.  Be there so you can brag to your friends that you were into them before they hit the big time.  Simon Sweetman doesn’t hate them, so that is some kind of endorsement 😉

The Good Words is made up of:

•  Nik Jarvie-Waldrom – Vocals
• Takumi Motokawa – Keyboard (composition prize winner)
• Mike Duffy – Bass
• Nick Hensman – Drums

These guys are all kinds of awesome, they kick off at 9.00pm with support from Old Time Enemies $10 on the door.  All the dets are on the invite here.

Their bio says it as well as I can:

Take one soul-jazz template, elongate it, daub in bits of funk, traces of pop and the energy of a rock band to create 21st-century Diva blues. Proudly Kiwi, defiantly original and with enough quirk to keep them far from the labels of any particular ‘scene’, The Good Words live in the moments within songs, sidestepping the obvious comparisons by offering just enough spontaneity in the performance, enhancing the crafted tunes. Hooking the audience from start to finish.

[Disclaimer: The author lives with super talented Takumi Motokawa but it ain’t just her that thinks they are shit hot, the demo is getting plenty of play in the office.)