Lisa’s creation Kaitiaki represented the tui and won a couple of awards in a previous Wow show. Photo by Brianne Kerr.
The announcement last week that Lisa Vanin had made the finals of the 2023 World of Wearable Art (Wow) show had the Cambridge mum fizzing in anticipation.
Together with 120 finalist designers from 23 countries, she will now go through two further stages of judging before the winners are announced at the 2023 Wow Show Awards night in Wellington on September 22.
Just getting to this point is a mammoth task for anyone entering the global spectacular. Lisa has been a Wow finalist before. She fell under its spell after first visiting the event in 2012 with her sister and sister-in-law – her 2023 co-finalists from Hamilton Sacha Mail and Jenny Jack respectively.
Cambridge’s Lisa Vanin has again been named a finalist in this year’s World of Wearable Art show.
“We’ve all got a bit of a creative edge,” said Lisa. “We’ve entered together at various Wows since then and all got something. As far as I know, we’re the only group from one family involved in it. As finalists again this year, we’ll go to the awards show in September together. It’s actually a great girl’s weekend away.”
Lisa originates from Tamahere and was educated in Hamilton, finishing off with a Bachelor of Modern Arts degree, majoring in graphic design. She segued into a management job at Waikato University for a while before teaching art at St Peter’s Cambridge until she resigned recently to tackle some life admin needing her attention.
Her creativity has shone throughout. In 2014 she made a garment called Belle of the Ball, using tennis balls. A year later, she fashioned She Dreams in Colours out of coloured pencils and pencil shavings. Both of those were entered in the children’s category.
In 2017 she placed second in the Aotearoa New Zealand category with The Cloak of Pīwakawaka, inspired by the native bird’s tail and made of bamboo and copper. In 2019 she won two Wow awards, taking the top slot in the New Zealand Design Award and scoring a second in the Aotearoa New Zealand category with her garment Kaitiaki, this time inspired by the tui and featuring more than 700 handmade feathers.
She created a piece for the show’s major sponsor, Mazda, last year, that was displayed at the front of TSB Arena in Wellington.
Lisa said the Wow boundaries established by the initial brief give her the starting point for her creations. Time after that is given over to creative design and many hours spent in her garage. “I’ve long since been kicked out of the lounge room.”
Wow was founded in 1987 by Nelson sculptor Dame Suzie Moncrieff. She is also a long-time judge and this year will join fellow judges Aotearoa New Zealand sculptor and Arts Foundation Laureate Brett Graham, designer and director of World, Benny Castles, and Weta Workshop chief Sir Richard Taylor.
Last year’s Wow show attracted an audience of nearly 64,000 people and netted $30 million for the Wellington region.
This year’s event will carry the theme ‘Beyond’ and offer $185,000 worth of awards and prizes to contestants.
“You really do have to jump through multiple hoops before you get anywhere … it’s very humbling,” said Lisa. “The whole event still blows my mind.”
