Sustainability Award winning entry Tears Unseen by Carena West. Photo: Stephen A'Court
Wellington's World of Wearable Arts competition has formalised its commitment to the environment, 36 years into the show.
“We’ve locked in sustainability as one of our four areas of strategic focus,” WOW chief executive Meg Williams said.
“This will shift us to a place where we’re measuring and actively managing our impact.”
The annual event is a Wellington institution that has a massive impact on the city.
This year sold more than 50,000 tickets and showcased garments by 120 designers from 22 countries.
But as environmental issues in the textiles industry are gaining more and more attention, it is impossible to avoid the question: what is WOW doing to ensure a sustainable show?
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For Williams, the whole show embodies environmental stewardship.
“WOW is a platform to celebrate sustainability, but also some of these big challenges that are facing the world. That’s something that drives our designers.”
From an operational standpoint, they are in the early stages of keeping themselves accountable.
They are tracking their carbon emissions for the first time this year, thanks to new tools making the goal accessible.
“Whilst we have a big production with up to 400 people, our core team is only small. What’s terrific is that some of the tools available now make it a lot easier,” she said.
They also focus on local – sourcing as many products and workers as they can from here in New Zealand.
For garments coming from overseas, they aim to give plenty of time to allow for sea freight.
As for the designs themselves, WOW incentivises the use of recycled materials through its sustainability award.
Eligible pieces must be either 80 percent recycled or able to be recycled at the end of their use.
Carena West won this year's Sustainability Award for her piece, Tears Unseen.
“The idea was that there’s a lot of mothers and caregivers out there and, I learned it first-hand, there’s a lot of times that you cry and you don’t want to show the world,” she explained.
She made the garment out of PETG offcuts - the same plastic that is used to make coke bottles.
While she originally intended to break it down and reuse the plastic next year, the award means it will now be kept in WOW’s collection.
In her day job, West runs a small business that makes compression leggings from recycled plastic.
Sustainability is central to what they do, she said.
“We know how damaging the fashion industry can be on the environment. So we wanted to create these tights that are amazing and functional and make women feel great. But we also wanted to reduce our impacts on the environment while we were doing it."
It was West’s first year competing in WOW, she was impressed by the number of designers inspired by the sustainability award.
“WOW do really push people to go for that award and there’s a lot of entrants that create pieces out of recycled materials,” she said.
She recalled a piece she saw a few years ago made out of old bike helmets.
“I thought that was so cool – to see rubbish and turn it into art.”
WOW would like to be more transparent around its sustainability measures, Williams said, and they hope to publish the carbon emissions that they track this year.
But for now, her main focus is making sure WOW continues to play a role in bringing attention to the big issues.