A latex bodysuit "that captivates the eye and refuses to let it go" has taken top honours in the 2025 World of WeareableArt (WOW) awards.
The "off-the-scale" garment won Georgia-based latex fashion designer Dawn Mostow and her partner in life and creativity Ben Gould their first Supreme WOW Award after entering the competition since 2017.
Tsukumogami, which also won the Wearable Technology Award, draws on Mostow's fascination with ancient Japanese mythology and ceramics, especially the cobalt blue-and-white Shonzui porcelain.
A radically innovative work that pays "exquisite homage" to centuries-old traditions was how the WOW judges - founder Dame Suzie Moncrieff, ceramic sculptor Virginia Leonard and artist Lindah Lepou - described Mostow and Goul's creation.
Wellington designer and 30-time WOW finalist Fifi Colston - who says this is her final year entering the competition - was runner-up for the Supreme WOW Award with Meine Erste Liebe - a garment inspired by the tragic love story of a nineteenth-century German botanical artist and his wife.
Judges said Colston's creation was "a divinely composed ode to love, loss and art".
Worn Landscape, which features a landscape image made by Canterbury designer Cushla O’Connell from over 6,000 up-cycled buttons, won the Wētā Workshop Award for Outstanding Design and placed first in the Aotearoa section.
Ōtaki designer Jan Kerr won The Dame Suzie Moncrieff Award for her garment Beeing Mary Bumby - a celebration of New Zealand’s earliest bee-keeper.
Hawke's Bay designer Anna Hayes-Moeau (Ngati Kahungunu ki te Wairoa) won the inaugural Te Tohu Toi Rākei - a new WOW Competition award recognising and celebrating excellence in Māori art - for Ko au ko Harakeke, Ko Harakeke ko au.
One hundred designers from 17 countries created 85 entries for the annual awards, which are celebrating 20 years in Wellington.
The 2025 WOW Show: RISE runs until 5 October at Wellington’s TSB Arena.
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