Once again, the WOW competition is in the news; you’ll recall us winning 1st place in the Wearable Technology category with our latex Labyrinth Gown. We also won 3rd prize in the Red category with “The Messenger” designed with Lana Crooks. This piece by Victoria Crocker: https://www.worldofwearableart.com/2017/11/a-look-back-designers-day-2017/ gives some further detail into the event and the extra special stuff we designers were treated to.
Victoria’s, A look back: Designers’ Day 2017 details surely one of the highlights of the World of WearableArt Awards Show, the annual Designers’ Day program. A grand networking event, what we found when we interacted with other designers at WOW (some Americans who we knew for years, lots of people from around the world we had ever met) there wasn’t so much a sense of competition as wonder over what everybody brought to New Zealand. Surely, we all wanted to win at WOW, and there were plenty of categories in the show for that. But I really felt everyone was so happy just to experience each other’s artistry and warm feelings, as Victoria certainly makes clear in her piece.
On that special day backstage tours were arranged by Head of Show Production and Wardrobe Manager. These were followed by special presentations by WOW’s 2017 Show Director, Kip Chapman, and Cirque du Soleil’s Head of Research & Development, Valérie Desjardins. There were also two interactive workshops given; the first led by Costume Designer and Artisan, Miodrag Guberinic, the second headed by the team from the Academy Award-winning Weta Workshop (remember we told you about our Hobbit tour!?) Weta, Peter Jackson’s company, is responsible for all those wonderful recent films of Tolkien’s world and a big part of WOW.
The Mayor of Wellington, Justin Lester, was at lunch with the designers that day and WOW Founder, Dame Suzie Moncrieff (how often do you get to be in the presence of an actual ‘dame’?) explained about the six ‘worlds’ (categories) sections represented in the competition.
Victoria’s wonderful reporting really took us back. Remembering such warm wonderful contemporaries in the magical land of New Zealand makes us yearn to be part of WOW all over again.
Look out next year!
