Meg Williams: World of Wearable Arts CEO on the show opening in Wellington

Wellington's globally renowned World of Wearable Arts show opens its doors today in its 20th year. 

The event runs for three weeks at TSB Arena with more than 60-thousand people are expected to attend. 

It brings in designers and creatives from around the world in a mix of fashion, music, and design. 

Chief Executive Meg Williams says it embraces the capital's creativity and around 70% of visitors come from out of town. 

She says WOW brings $30 million into the regional economy every year, because of visitor spend. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The World of Rebel Arts kicks off in Wellington today.
You can expect everything from dog bowl dresses to road
cone gowns. Plenty of road cones around to use. I
suppose big crowds made a big boost for the capitol
and boy do they need it. Meg Williams as the
World of Wearable Arts CEO with me this morning. Meg,
Good morning, good morning. Good to have you on the show.
What is the road cone gown?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Well, that was actually a supreme winner from last year,
which was actually inspired by our designers visit to New
Zealand a number of years ago after the Chiquarder earthquakes actually,
and she was many of our designers come over for
the show and then afterwards they take a trip around
New Zealand and on that trip she was really inspired

(00:42):
by the resilience of the country and how everyone had
pulled together after that, and so that was actually the
inspiration for that piece. It's a spectacular piece and yeah,
and so it just so happened that it came into
the competition last year.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Meghap.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
It's an example of the kind of invention and imagination
that that designers put to put to the.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Task for whom how many of you. Are you expecting today, Meg.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Well, we opened this week. We have pull on Friday,
so we had our first dress rehearsal last night, and
across the season we expect around sixty thousand and many
of those are from out of the region, so we
have about seventy percent from outside of the Wellington region.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
And what we had Roadeconds you said was the Supreme Winner.
What are we expecting this year?

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, well, I can tell you a little bit about
the show. The show is called Rise, and it's about
a city illuminated with the creative spirit. And so there's
a cityscape in which we invite the audience into six
different sections and so the wearable our designers designed for
those sections to give you a little taste of a
couple of those. We have avant garde, which is kind

(01:52):
of at the cature end. It's very beautiful and in
the show that the theme is less and infused. Music
can sultry, and we also try and make something fly
in that section that we sh shouldn't make fly, which
is a hallmark of what wow it does. We have
a section called Neon, which, as you can imagine, is
just a riot of color and our designers have really

(02:13):
gone to town in that section. That's just huge fun.
And the music soundtrack is this nineties inspired club hits,
so some real bang isn't there. And then we've finished
with Miss Simn Legends, which is ready for designs inspired
by the mythic and the finale is really a beautiful
operatic moment with an incredible vocal performance. So that's just

(02:36):
a taste of about half of what they wanted to
just can expect it.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Wow, this year brilliant and sixty thousand people heading to
Wellington got to be a good thing. Nick. Thank you
very much for your time this morning, and best luck
with this year's world of Wearable Art. Meg Williams as
the chief executive for.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
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