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Prior years entries and winners.  Theme based on the circus.

The main difference between a fashion designer and a costumer is that costumers share their abilities.  They feed each other just by being creative.  Everyone in life has different experiences and costumers get excited when they can share what they have learned.  It’s not just their abilities they share, they also share their ideas and encourage each other by getting excited about another artists ideas.  They ask questions about designs and get each other to think more outside the box than they would have creating something on their own.  This is the energy and excitement I received when meeting up the next day for the International entrants day.

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Prior years entries and winners.  Theme based on the circus.

All of the entrants from all over the world including a couple of New Zealand entrants met up for a tour of local places in Wellington.  It was a great opportunity to visit with people from everywhere.  Joseph Bawar, the first entrant from the Philippines and an utterly sweat gentleman entered a piece called “Silver Belle”, made of pop pull tabs and sequins.  He was fun to talk to and very excited to be in New Zealand and couldn’t stop taking pictures, I think if his camera had not been digital he would have run out of film on several occasions.  Quit often I was feeling a little star struck.  I got to meet last years winners of the supreme WOW award, “Loops”, Yogesh Chaudhary & Manas Barve from India.  Through the course of the day I got to see the piece in person and was really blown away.  “Loops”  is laser cut Marino wool with hundreds of tiny little loops and dots, almost like fabric hooks-N-eyes.  Yogesh told us a funny story of what had happened to the garment before sending it into WOW.  When they had finished the garment and after taking pictures but before mailing it, they had sent it to the cleaners to make sure it was fresh for the contest.  When they got it back, all of the little loops had come undone, so they had to spend a couple of hours redoing everything before hitting their shipping deadline.  They almost missed it.  As a designer who has to meet deadlines I know personally the stress this sort of thing can cause.

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Entry from the extreme bra challenge.  This challenge takes place every other year with the opposite year being the Redefine the Man challenge.  This years was redefining the Groom.  Very funny, wish you all where there to see it.

Our first stop was along the waterfront with a little talk from one of the professional entries, Beatrice Carlson, who lives in New Zealand.  She talked of her work and what inspires her.  We also had a little lecture from one of the folks from the Te Papa Museum about the history of the cloaks the Maori chiefs wore.  The weaving is actually quit beautiful and intricate.  Each weave tells something about the wearer and the tribe.

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A Maori canoe

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We had a boat tour up the length of the reservoir, and met a couple of the permanent locals.

As far as our tour went we visited a little place called Zealandia.  It is a section of Wellington that has been set aside to return New Zealand to the types of vegitation and animal life New Zealand was before whites came with their ships and the different types of animals and plants they brought with them.  A very large fence has been erected around the entire site that is impenetrable.  It was especially created to keep wild house cats, rabbits and other various animals from getting in and hunting the Native wildlife.  A lot of which are having trouble surviving because they have become food for non-indigenous wildlife.  Pigs and such have become wild and eaten Kiwi bird eggs as well as house cats have hunted down some of the other types of birds and lizards native to New Zealand.  The people at Zealandia are working hard to remove from the area several non-indigenous plants and trees.  From listening to our guide we learned that in just the last five to ten years certain areas of the preserve have completely returned to it’s original vegitation, which after seeing the video is kind of amazing.  The area was completely deforested and turned into a water reservoir for the town of Wellington back in the early 1900’s.

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Native flightless birds of NZ.  Mated pair, related to ostrich.

After the boat ride we had a walking tour of a portion of the park.  I was amazed by the vegitation.  I have inspiration for years based solely on this walk.  It felt as though I had stepped back in time to prehistoric world.  I was ready for a T-Rex to come charging through thee brush at any moment.

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Walking through the primitive forest.

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Parrots and Lizards in the sanctuary.

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My inspiration for my next WOW Garment.

We ended out day with one of the best views in the city and a tram ride that was a 45 degree angle the whole way down.  The group photo shows all of the international entrants for 2011.  What a great group of people.

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Best View in the city and a trip down.

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A fantastic group of new friends.