World of Wearable Art: a magical event fusing art and fashion in unique ways

Right now, I’m in New Zealand, a country that most people know little about, is often ignored, and was even left off the map at the Olympics Closing Ceremony. So you can be forgiven for having never heard of The World of Wearable Art, an annual fashion extravaganza that I recently experienced in the capital city of Wellington.

But I can tell you this much: it really was an experience.

A true multisensory extravaganza, it featured not only awe-inspiring garments but also incorporated dance, music and acrobatics.

But while the title is pretty self-explanatory, it’s still quite hard to describe this event, which took place in front of around 10,000 people each night across three weeks.

What happens on stage

At some points, it felt like we were watching a fashion catwalk; at others, it was a contemporary dance performance. Then suddenly, it would transform into an all-singing, all-dancing West End show, with performers flying through the air on high wires, before transforming into something closer to Cirque du Soleil.

At other times, it felt like a gigantic performance art exhibit, something you could have imagined at a festival like Burning Man or Glastonbury.

From dancing caterpillars to steampunk saxophonists, there was so much going on visually that it was sometimes hard to know where to look. But at other times, the frenzy abated and transformed into something quieter and more meaningful.

One poignant moment came during the Aotearoa section (named after the Māori word for New Zealand), where students from two Wellington colleges performed songs in the Māori language, including a rendition of Lorde’s classic song, Royals.

This kind of cultural fusion can often miss the mark or feel patronising, but this section hit all the right notes for me, both literally and metaphorically.

Garments that push the boundaries

The main attraction, though, was the wearable artworks themselves: garments that pushed the boundaries of art and fashion in both their form and function. And these were all, without exception, entrancing.

That’s a testament to the power of creativity, but also the motivation of competition. Because these spectacular and often surreal creations were all the product of an annual global contest, with winners hailing from nine countries across four continents.

For this year’s show, titled Dream Awake, there were six categories: three recurring sections (Aotearoa, Avant-Garde, and Open) and three sections unique to the year (Natural World, Geometric Abstraction, and Crazy Curiosities of the Creature Carnival).

Alongside a strong showing for Kiwis, designers from the United States, China, India, Turkey, the UK and Australia took home accolades in various categories.

The overall winner – the recipient of the Supreme WOW Award – was American designer Grace DuVal for her striking creation Curves Ahead, a domineering and curvaceous figure crafted from vinyl reflective construction signs and topped with a crown of plastic cones and fibreglass poles.

This made my uneducated mind leap to drunken antics (who hasn’t come home from a night out with a traffic cone on their head?). However, I couldn’t have been wider off the mark: it’s actually a tribute to the strength and resilience shown by New Zealanders in the wake of the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake.

Another entry that caught the crowd’s attention was Hinetekaputi, a dress made entirely from recycled teabags in 1840s colonial style. The garment’s train revealed itself to display the Treaty of Waitangi: a statement on New Zealand’s history and ongoing conversations around Indigenous rights and representation.

Elsewhere, the Weta Workshop Emerging Designer Award was won by New Zealander Katherine Bertram for her garment Termite Cathedral. This fulfilled the promise of the title beautifully, albeit somewhat disturbingly, as if Guillermo del Toro and Jean Paul Gaultier had a baby together.

Far-fetched fun

Other winning garments – note, you’re not meant to call them costumes – included a tentacled exotic dancer known as Gigi the Wyrm of Spinelesque, made by Americans Sean Purucker and Tony Rivas. Then there was Changing Perceptions, a set of psychedelic spinning wheels by New Zealander Rebecca Bond that I found unexpectedly hypnotic. Not to mention Walking Wardrobe by fellow Kiwi Laurel Judd, which pushed the line between clothing and oversized prop to far-fetched proportions.

My personal favourite, though, had to be Soundscape by Ashish Dhaka of India. A sculptural creation that appeared to be made out of paper, this clever design represented the resonant sounds of deep earth through its rippling patterns. A simple idea but brilliantly rendered.

All of these garments would have looked spectacular enough just hanging in an art gallery. But the performers brought an extra dimension to these designs, bringing them to beguiling life with their dance and body movements, making you feel you were entering a different world.

Okay, it all sounds a bit silly, and in many ways, it was. But does art have to be serious? Sometimes, it’s the fun and ridiculous stuff that makes people think the most.

From Dali to Banksy, art history is packed with characters known for their sense of fun and playfulness. And yet their work nonetheless reverberates down the ages, inspiring fresh generations year on year.

Similarly, I left WOW, newly inspired by the immense creativity and innovation of these designers and the shared joy of experiencing art in motion, ready to see the world afresh through a lens of unlimited possibility.