Overview
Each year, I walk out of the World of Wearable Arts show in an utter daze, exclaiming to anyone who would listen that it was the best WOW show yet.
It's unlikely this year will be any different: the absolute extravaganza that is WOW just seems to keep bettering itself. Saturated with a visual feast of the avant garde, the radical and the brilliant, the show performs to over 50,000 in a twelve-show season beginning 27th September at the TSB Bank Arena on Wellington's waterfront.
The show's growth comes from small beginnings. Founder Dame Suzie Moncrieff held a small-scale Wearable Arts show in 1987 in a marquee at a Nelson art gallery. Proving a hit with arty types, it grew with each year in Nelson until its move to Wellington in 2004.
Having grown exponentially since then, the show today is a seamless multimedia experience of art, textile design, performance and sound. The wearable art pieces themselves are consistently ingenious, a reflection of the flair and passionate artistry of their designers in adorning the human form. No longer restricted to New Zealand entrants, global designers from over 130 countries add their works to the mix. New textures, materials, techniques and structure emerge each year, a continual renewal of inspiration for designers and audiences alike.
Not only are the wearable art pieces innovative, so too is the stage and performance design of the creative team behind the show. Dame Suzie and her raft of set and costume designers, production managers, choreographers, models, dancers (and the occasional animal) combine to produce a two-hour visually dazzling show that does truly live up to its name and wows. The consistent popularity of the show is testament to its evolutionary nature, one of the most sensational seen on New Zealand (or indeed; the world) stage.
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