On Friday I lucked into a free ticket to World of Wearable Arts — on awards night!
Out of a blizzard of jawdroppingly dazzling entries, these two velvet and gold characters ‘WOWed’ me the most.
Clinging together like limpets doing a kind of shuffly waltz, gilded domes entwined, the point of it all was at first a mystery.
Then they shuffled into the spotlight, untwined their necks, leaned back, and became…
…a human purse!
In the ad world, award judges tend to bypass irrelevant complexity and honour the surprising and the simple.
So with complexity abundant and simplicity scarce, I thought Velluto Rosso by Wellington’s Paula Rowan, would clean up.
And so, I read on Kiwiblog, did David Farrar. And 3 News too, who showcased this entry on their website.
How telling that three amateur pundits should all recognise the power of the big idea.
Yet the judges did not.
They plumped for the complex, and the human purse was out of the money.
David describes the rest of the spectacular night well — an astonishing achievement for our small city.
I’ve always giggled at the tag ‘Coolest Little Capital’, since the only other ‘little’ capitals are Canberra, Reykjavik and Suva.
But with WOW, the Sevens and the breath-defying creations of Weta Workshop, Wellington must surely be the Fancy Dress Capital of the Universe.
John Ansell 
Without seeing the other exhibitors’ works, yes, that certainly looks like a winner. I’m so glad WOW is doing excellently well in the Capital. Do you realise it was a Nelson invention that started very small and grew into something colossal? It had been here for years before Suzy Moncrieff decided it would be better shown to a wider audience and she was so right even though we are very sorry to lose it.
We do have a WOW Museum here though which is very popular with tourists and locals alike.
There are some very talented people out there.
Yes Helen, I certainly do realise it was a Nelson invention.
I’ve been to the WoW Museum, which they’ve niftily combined with a car museum – presumably to keep the blokes amused.
The show now goes to Hong Kong and will presumably conquer the rest of the world in due course.
For the same reason you’re sorry it left Nelson, I hope it doesn’t move on from Wellington.
Same with the Sevens, for which thousands of amateur fashion designers create extraordinary costumes of a different kind.
Great but not an original idea it seems:
look at “red Purse” by Vladimir Lush
http://sayskakodkar.blogspot.co.nz/2012/06/red-purse.html
Well well, it appears my favourite piece wasn’t so original after all.
(An original garment perhaps, but not an original idea.)
How disappointing.
Thank you, Mathilde.
Why do so few people visit this site? It’s bordering on a waste of time isn’t it?
So why waste your time – and ours – visiting? Obviously it fascinates you for some reason.
And how do you know how many visitors it gets? I don’t call 200 – 2500 visits a day (depending on how active I am, with 750-1000 being normal) a few.
Sorry I thought this comment was left on the treatygate site. This one I’ll be reactivating soon, and dealing with other issues.
Re the above comment;
You are a good man Mr Ansell doing great work in very troubled times both worldly and personally, speaking the truth that many need to hear and see first hand from not only yourself but all other non PC knowledgeable people that in some cases have had Family members living in New Zealand well prior to Colonisation and not dumbed down by the so called elite that are now well entrenched in all positions of power and filling their workplaces with like minded sycophantic appeasing yes people, dare I say brown tounges that know no better due to. . . Corruption that now really believe they are doing a great job, yeah right.
The *truth* really does need to come out, now more than ever and well. . . sir I personally commend your efforts both past and present.
Bless you good sir and Godspeed my friend 🙂
Thank you Ironsides, good to have your support.