Avant-garments: the wild world of wearable art – in pictures — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- World of WearableArt is an annual festival in Wellington, New Zealand, where international designers gather to show pieces blending art, design, fashion, and theatre
- The festival culminates in a competition featuring garments ranging from gowns resembling birds, fish, and telephones to surreal pieces inspired by cultural heritage and the natural world
- Kayla Christensen, a New Zealand artist, won the 2026 Supreme Wow award — the competition's top prize
- Christensen's winning piece, "Sacred Nightfall," is an intricately stitched tapestry designed to summon a night goddess from the native forests of Aotearoa
Why it matters: The Supreme Wow is the headline award at one of the world's most-watched wearable art competitions, and Christensen's win puts an indigenous Aotearoa-inspired narrative at the center of an international stage dominated typically by Western fashion references. For the niche but globally followed WOW circuit, a top-prize tapestry grounded in native-forest mythology broadens the kinds of bodies and stories the medium is seen to celebrate.
Ask SkimNews
