Finalists Announced for 2010 Montana WOW Awards

Finalists Announced for 2010 Montana WOW Awards

The Montana World of WearableArt™ Awards Show is in its 22nd year and is a world-renowned design and art event attracting ever-growing interest and amazing works of art from across the globe.
A stunning exhibition of creative ingenuity, the Montana WOW® Awards Show brings to life artworks designed for the human form, showcasing a near-boundless display of imagination that builds on the anthropological aspiration to be more than we are.

Highlights from the 2010 Montana WOW® story so far…

• The 191 garments chosen for the stage is the largest contingent ever

• The level of artistry grows year on year with incredible materials ranging from hundreds of individually styled metal parts to 17,900 metres of yarn.

• One in three garments chosen for the show are from international designers across four continents, including a record 23 from India.

• WOW® designers range from dentists to architects, jewelers to sculptors, fashion designers to business analysts, students and retirees

• Designers compete for $100,000 in prizes including the Supreme Award and the highly coveted Weta Award selected by Oscar-winning designer Sir Richard Taylor

The 2009 Supreme Award was won by an international designer, David Walker from Alaska, who received more than $25,000 in prizes for his classical gown entry Lady of the Wood.
With the initial selection complete the 2010 Montana WOW® Awards judging continues on two more occasions in September before opening night on 23 September at TSB Arena in Wellington.

Joining WOW® Founder Suzie Moncrieff on the panel this year is New Zealand kinetic sculptor Phil Price, and former fashion designer Doris de Pont who is synonymous with the New Zealand fashion scene.
"The judging process for WOW has been totally captivating,” says Phil Price. “It is a privilege to witness the sophistication of this art genre and the designers are really demonstrating the synthesis of elements that any good design requires. We are seeing really inventive solutions that are playful and intelligent.”

The choreography for the 2010 show will showcase 191 finalists who have been chosen to compete in the Montana WOW® Awards Show from an array of more than 300 entrants from all over New Zealand and the world.

International designers from 25 countries submitted entries for the Montana WOW® Awards and 61 garments from Germany, Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, Netherlands, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, and USA were selected to join local entries on the WOW® stage.

Poetry in motion is oft quoted as a descriptor for fashion, and former WOW® Supreme Award winner Rodney Leong puts mythical poet Jessica Macbeth behind his entry for the Gen-i Creative Excellence Section: The Art of Light. Named after one of Macbeth’s poems, A Silent Stillness – Requiem for Lee represents the perfection of nature compared to the frailty of humanity, using plastics and polyester to create an ice-like necklace of winterful wonder.

True to the spirit of creative endeavour, Auckland designers Erna and Karl Van Der Wat fought with their design until a timely understanding between artist and artwork brought Unity to life. Working with spring steel to make a coiled costume, the duo soon found themselves adapting the garment to the testy temperament of their materials, with the final result being a three-piece fluorescent entry into the CentrePort Illumination Illusion® Section, themed Float, Fly, Flow. Representing the fleeting grasp of perfect harmony, the garment is true to its own inspiration.

Veteran designer Susan Holmes’ makes a tribute to the beauty of material with Gondwana in the Air New Zealand South Pacific Section. Using textiles sent to her by Australian artist India Flint, the Auckland designer has stepped back from her traditional flamboyant style to express the exquisite patterns in the hand dyed silk fabric. “Simplicity ruled in the making of this piece – no matter how I tried I could not add anything clever or tricky!” Adding a hat of panama straw to complete the lines of the garment, Holmes says it portrays the “dry haunting Australian landscape”.

2001 WOW® Supreme Award winner Tarja Pabbruwe and fellow designers Petro van Zijl looked beneath the bed, in the back of the wardrobe and behind the dresser for their inspiration for Trichromatic Hula Sistars Revue. Recycling clothes, belts and bed heads to create the triple piece entry in the Tourism New Zealand Avant Garde Section, Pabbruwe sends a message about letting go of the incessant material clutter we accumulate in a materialist world. “When we do release, we allow the possibility of many freedoms and new ways to be kept in balance and harmony.”

Plastic ties woven into tribal patterns create a blend of modern materials and ethnic traditions in Warrior Princess by Bev Goodwin. The garment’s design incorporates Native American Indian patterns with Pacific patterns and elements of art deco and Scottish Highland dress to make a true international compendium of “cultural cross-over” for the Air New Zealand South Pacific Section.

A retro-styled take on recycling, Auckland designer Monique Hansen’s entry in the American Express Open Section turns “yesterday’s treasures” into today’s art. Bun In The Oven uses an actual oven retrieved from a dumpster somewhere, with second-hand fabric and synthetics alongside it to build a garment more about renewal and rebirth than the traditional meaning of the colloquial phrase.
The effort and inspiration that goes into the incredible garments that make it to the final stage of the Montana WOW® Awards is the backbone of the event.

WOW® then creatively weaves these painstakingly crafted garments of a world’s worth of designers’ dreams and epiphanies into an eleven show season (including the newly released matinee at 2pm on Saturday 2 October) opening 23 September. This choreographed dramatic live performance is seen by an audience of more than 43,000 people in Wellington, New Zealand’s creative capital and the ultimate place to tell the global story of the weird and wonderful World of WearableArt™.

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