What design would you wear – and where?
An audience of 60,000 comes together every year to escape into the World of WearableArt (WOW). The 2025 WOW Show: RISE will see an imagined city come together in a creative uprising that will uplift and awe. Eighty-five finalist garments will thread through the crowd and come to life on storeys-high video screens, in a spectacle where live concert, dance, aerial arts, stage tech and gallery art collide.
Wearable art moves art off the wall and onto the moving body. To get close to this work (in our minds), we each “picked” a different WOW piece from the archive and imagined the situation we’d wear it in. It’s important to note that these pieces are not actually designed to be worn in real life. These are artworks made by world renowned craftspeople and feature everything from ancient weaving techniques to the latest textile technologies. We, on the other hand, are mere mortals, office workers/writers who rank biscuits more often than we review art. Regardless, this is what we’d wear from WOW (and when) if given half a chance.
Tailgater
I am going to see Lady Gaga in Sydney in December and am naturally already in ribbons about what to wear. A meat dress will never get past customs, I’m not confident enough for Joanne cropped tees and cut-offs, and I don’t have enough friends going to the concert to comfortably carry me in a giant egg. That’s when I came across Tailgater, a stunning 2024 piece made by Kerri Barrie from Australia (handy, she could maybe meet me outside the venue with it). A “fusion of automotive innovation and timeless elegance” is exactly what I need to impress Stefani Germanotta herself, representative of both her love of chrome and her commitment to recycling. / Alex Casey
Blooming Proof
During Covid, I obsessively followed a Trade Me auction for a UFO-shaped Futuro House. Fewer than 100 of these weird houses were made in the 60s and only a handful still exist. Lucky for us, the auction winner turned theirs into an Airbnb just outside of Christchurch. I’ve hosted two parties there, and at the last one I made everyone present a short talk on outer space. One person explained the Fermi paradox – the observation that there is a high probability that advanced life forms exist elsewhere, yet no evidence of them has been found. Well, now it has been. This artwork, which I would obviously wear to my next Futuro House party, indicates that there is in fact life on Mars. There are aliens and they have been yarn bombed. I love Blooming Proof’s colours, textures and the extremely long fingers. It’s a dopamine dressed alien. The thing I find most beautiful about this piece of art though is its creation story. Erna Van Der Wat, an Auckland based designer, collaborated on it with her mother, Joanne Van Wyk, and her mother-in-law, Lena Van Der Wat. Both are over 80 and based in South Africa. Despite being on opposite sides of this planet, the trio co-crafted this creature. / Liv Sisson
Child·Hood
When I dropped my three-year-old off at daycare the other morning, all the children were gathered around a log in the garden gazing in awe upon a wee wētā. Imagine, then, the absolute scenes that would ensue if my kid arrived riding atop her mother, who has magically transformed into a giant wheeled wētā via the magic of Greymouth welder Craig McMillan’s incredible piece Child·Hood, made out of “forgotten logs dredged from the lake of childhood summers”. Would the other children be terrified? Possibly, but that sort of badass entrance would ensure my kid’s playground cred would be unimpeachable till at least high school. / Alice Neville
Volcano
There are key moments in life that you reflect on and think about what could’ve been. How could you have really made your feelings known? Or gotten people to understand exactly how you felt? This incredible piece of wearable art captures one of those moments for me. In it, I make an entrance. I am gliding through the corridors of my ex-mother-in-law’s home wearing Volcano. I do not speak because this piece conveys all that I need it to: darkness and flaming hot rage. I love everything about it. The feathery, flaming, Lorax-like hands. I am running one along the dining table and holding a goblet of red wine in the other. The eyes are a window to my soul, and the red really says it all. The Shakespearean neck ruffle screams drama and it hugs the bod in all the right places to create a perfect silhouette. Chefs kiss, love it. / Bec Murphy
Murderer
I’ve been putting off booking in an eye exam for about two years now, because I know it is not going to be good news. Every day my strained peepers totally dry up, capillaries bursting and under eyebags capacious, and I know it’s because I’m not wearing the right glasses prescription or blinking enough. With this eye-popping piece of art in my arsenal, I could strut into my nearest optometrist with the confidence that it would at least lift the mood. I’d say “hey folks, my eyes are up here” and we would all share a hearty laugh together, and then I would spend hundreds upon hundreds of dollars buying new glasses that I will inevitably sit on. / Alex Casey
The Golden Age of Queens
This spectacular work of wearable art may be “fit for the queens of the golden age of Europe”, but I think it is also fit for parents doing the last-minute supermarket shop on a busy Sunday afternoon. Grocery shopping can be stressful, so when I join every other frazzled shopper in the same aisle during the last few minutes of a precious weekend, I want to wear something that will make life easier. This impressive suit of armour will protect me from any fellow shopper who dares to cut me off with their trolley, or who reaches across to nab the last box of eggs on sale. Now I will finally be free to roam the aisles at will, my head well protected from any falling packets of toilet tissue. The golden days are back, baby. I’ll see you in the frozens. / Tara Ward
Love Me Tender
Given the choice, this is how I would walk through any shopping centre. Full black latex to confound and confuse. No security camera will know me, no facial recognition software able to add me to its database, no supermarket checkout camera sending me to jail for weighing my pears wrong. It’s like a real-life adblocker, a rejection of the world’s cookies. The defensive boa of 3,500 hand-rolled plastic cigarette-shaped tubes adds a halo of visual static. My boundary is unknowable, my intentions mysterious and alluring. Embrace the void. This work of art asks, what if an isolation pod were fashion, and what lengths must we go to to keep our privacy. / Ben Fagan
Chronos
My dream superpower is the ability to control time. Stylish, yet practical, this wearable art piece from last year’s show would finally allow me to jump from the past to the present and beyond. In it, I am an amphibious time traveller who is happy to get caught deep in history or far into the future. The long army green trenchcoat and oversized grey-knitted cardigan ensure I stay warm and dry. The large pair of faux eyes distract and deceive onlookers, concealing my true identity as I skip across timelines. The analog clock on my back ensures I stay in touch with what the true Greenwich Mean Time is and am never late for where I need to be next. The magical map makes sure I never get lost, and the multi-tool belt is full of tinctures to cure almost any ailment. When it all becomes too much, I simply inflate the globe on my back and float away to the next parallel universe. / Liam Rātana
