The Lady Warrior, Rinaldy Yunardi, Indonesia

2022 World of WearableArt show

A world renowned wearable art experience, where an annual design competition culminates in a spectacular show combining theatre, art, fashion, music & performance.

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2022 Gallery

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2022

WOW is New Zealand’s most spectacular theatrical stage production. The 2022 Show included over 100 dancers, kapa haka performers (Ngāti Pōneke), aerialists, and a spectacular headline performances by New Zealand musicians Estère, and Sharn Te Pou.

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The Lady Warrior, Rinaldy Yunardi, Indonesia

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Credit:

The Lady Warrior, Rinaldy Yunardi, Indonesia

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A record attendance of 63,678 to the 2022 WOW Show. Featuring 88 garments created by 103 finalist designers from 20 countries and regions.

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2022 WOW Show, finale

Beyond amazing, exceeding every idea of what we were going to see. Proud to have this in our country.

Mark Carmen Meikle

2022 WOW Show Audience Member

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2022 WOW Show, Avant-garde

Supreme winner of the year

Wanton Widow

Kate MacKenzie

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New Zealand

Wanton Widow examines the vast differences between rich and poor in the Victorian age and asks us to think about its relevance today.

The China cabinet represents the rich as it was a means for displaying ones’ wealth. The singer sewing machine represents the working class and the poor.

The designer, Kate, wanted this garment to represent the dark and drab of the era - something that looked like it had been in a cupboard all this time and dragged out for the show. Something that represented the industrial, working to middle class.

Wanton Widow, Kate MacKenzie, New Zealand

2022 Show Gallery

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Creative Team

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2022 section themes

Six worlds, six themes

Elizabethan Era

Architecture

Aotearoa

Wellington 'The Skin I Am In', Katherine Bertram, New Zealand

Avant-garde

Open

Waste Mountain, Jessie Curry, London College of Fashion, United Kingdom

2022

Section themes

Each year there are six section themes for designers to create for, and then these six worlds are displayed on stage.

In 2022, the Aotearoa Section was heralded by kapa haka performers, Ngāti Pōneke, and five giant Kaitiaki, then a colourful celebration of our international community and cultures before we then saw the fantastic Aotearoa Section garments take the stage.

A beautiful aerialist performance started the next show section: Avant-garde Section. The audience was treated to a stunning garden of chandeliers with black wraith-like dancers performing a dramatic chair dance routine as the scene began.

The Monochromatic Section was big, bold with upbeat music. A Kaynemail curtain rolled out featuring giant projections of each garment and created a tunnel through which the garments appeared. Performers filled the isles at the start of the Open Section with a fantastic dance routine and singing led by Estere, this year’s featured artist. The Kaynemail again took centre stage projecting images of rings of fire.

Next up was the upside-down world of Architecture. Drawing on ideas similar to the movie Inception, this section played with ideas of dimensions and time. Dancers in black suits with suitcases appeared and disappeared from doorways, took to the air in dramatic aerialist displays, and dropped through trapdoors as incredible garments made their entrances.

The grand finale was the Elizabethan Section with a stunning array of colourful garments that paraded through an Elizabethan garden. The final scene saw Estere lifted to the heavens by pink ribbons in a shower of confetti. The whole arena was bathed in a sea of pink as the audience became part of the show waving their pink fans in the air.

Monochromatic

Elizabethan Era

Architecture

Aotearoa

Avant-garde

Open

2022 Award winners

Kate MacKenzie is among 21 award winners in the 2022 World of WearableArt Awards Competition, in which more than NZD$185,000 of prize money was on offer.

Supreme WOW Award

Winner