World of Wearable Artwork: a magical occasion fusing artwork and trend in distinctive methods

Proper now, I am in New Zealand, a rustic that most individuals know little about, is usually ignored, and was even left off the map on the Olympics Closing Ceremony. So that you may be forgiven for having by no means heard of The World of Wearable Artwork, an annual trend extravaganza that I not too long ago skilled within the capital metropolis of Wellington.

However I can let you know this a lot: it actually was an expertise.

A real multisensory extravaganza, it featured not solely awe-inspiring clothes but additionally included dance, music and acrobatics.

However whereas the title is fairly self-explanatory, it is nonetheless fairly exhausting to explain this occasion, which passed off in entrance of round 10,000 folks every night time throughout three weeks.

What occurs on stage

At some factors, it felt like we had been watching a trend catwalk; at others, it was a up to date dance efficiency. Then all of a sudden, it might rework into an all-singing, all-dancing West Finish present, with performers flying via the air on excessive wires, earlier than remodeling into one thing nearer to Cirque du Soleil.

At different occasions, it felt like a big efficiency artwork exhibit, one thing you can have imagined at a pageant like Burning Man or Glastonbury.

From dancing caterpillars to steampunk saxophonists, there was a lot happening visually that it was generally exhausting to know the place to look. However at different occasions, the frenzy abated and remodeled into one thing quieter and extra significant.

One poignant second got here in the course of the Aotearoa part (named after the Māori phrase for New Zealand), the place college students from two Wellington schools carried out songs within the Māori language, together with a rendition of Lorde’s traditional track, Royals.

This type of cultural fusion can typically miss the mark or really feel patronising, however this part hit all the correct notes for me, each actually and metaphorically.

Clothes that push the boundaries

The principle attraction, although, was the wearable artworks themselves: clothes that pushed the boundaries of artwork and trend in each their kind and performance. And these had been all, with out exception, entrancing.

That is a testomony to the facility of creativity, but additionally the motivation of competitors. As a result of these spectacular and sometimes surreal creations had been all of the product of an annual world contest, with winners hailing from 9 international locations throughout 4 continents.

For this 12 months’s present, titled Dream Awake, there have been six classes: three recurring sections (Aotearoa, Avant-Garde, and Open) and three sections distinctive to the 12 months (Pure World, Geometric Abstraction, and Loopy Curiosities of the Creature Carnival).

Alongside a powerful exhibiting for Kiwis, designers from the US, China, India, Turkey, the UK and Australia took dwelling accolades in numerous classes.

The general winner – the recipient of the Supreme WOW Award – was American designer Grace DuVal for her putting creation Curves Forward, a domineering and curvaceous determine crafted from vinyl reflective development indicators and topped with a crown of plastic cones and fibreglass poles.

This made my uneducated thoughts leap to drunken antics (who hasn’t come dwelling from an evening out with a visitors cone on their head?). Nonetheless, I could not have been wider off the mark: it is truly a tribute to the power and resilience proven by New Zealanders within the wake of the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake.

One other entry that caught the group’s consideration was Hinetekaputi, a gown made fully from recycled teabags in 1840s colonial type. The garment’s prepare revealed itself to show the Treaty of Waitangi: a press release on New Zealand’s historical past and ongoing conversations round Indigenous rights and illustration.

Elsewhere, the Weta Workshop Rising Designer Award was received by New Zealander Katherine Bertram for her garment Termite Cathedral. This fulfilled the promise of the title superbly, albeit considerably disturbingly, as if Guillermo del Toro and Jean Paul Gaultier had a child collectively.

Far-fetched enjoyable

Different profitable clothes – be aware, you are not meant to name them costumes – included a tentacled unique dancer often called Gigi the Wyrm of Spinelesque, made by People Sean Purucker and Tony Rivas. Then there was Altering Perceptions, a set of psychedelic spinning wheels by New Zealander Rebecca Bond that I discovered unexpectedly hypnotic. To not point out Strolling Wardrobe by fellow Kiwi Laurel Judd, which pushed the road between clothes and outsized prop to far-fetched proportions.

My private favorite, although, needed to be Soundscape by Ashish Dhaka of India. A sculptural creation that seemed to be made out of paper, this intelligent design represented the resonant sounds of deep earth via its rippling patterns. A easy concept however brilliantly rendered.

All of those clothes would have regarded spectacular sufficient simply hanging in an artwork gallery. However the performers introduced an additional dimension to those designs, bringing them to beguiling life with their dance and physique actions, making you are feeling you had been getting into a special world.

Okay, all of it sounds a bit foolish, and in some ways, it was. However does artwork need to be severe? Typically, it is the enjoyable and ridiculous stuff that makes folks suppose essentially the most.

From Dali to Banksy, artwork historical past is full of characters recognized for his or her sense of enjoyable and playfulness. And but their work nonetheless reverberates down the ages, inspiring contemporary generations 12 months on 12 months.

Equally, I left WOW, newly impressed by the immense creativity and innovation of those designers and the shared pleasure of experiencing artwork in movement, able to see the world afresh via a lens of limitless chance.