Its that time of year again – the colourful World of WearableArt™ has quite literally blown into town this week, ready to paint the town red! Hopefully by the time the competing designers fly in from around the world to see their garments take the stage, today’s gale force winds will have died down to a gentle, welcoming  sea breeze.

Wind, rain or shine, on Thursday 25 October you will be able to join the World of WearableArt™ designers at Te Papa for an inspirational symposium entitled Wellington City: An Incubator for Creativity.. The symposium, which runs from 2 to 4pm, will feature three Wellington-based creatives, and will be followed by a Q&A session.

This year’s speakers include Sue Prescott, a WOW® designer alumna and former WOW®, and fashion lecturer at Massey University’s  College of Creative Arts,  Rebecca Sinclair – Director Academic, Massey University College of Creative Arts and Paul Tobin from Weta Workshop, who has been employed for the last 10 years as a Concept Designer on film, television and computer game projects. He has most recently completed work on Sir Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit Trilogy and also worked on James Cameron’s Avatar(2009) and Andrew Adamson’s The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Prince Caspian (2008).

Entry to the symposium is FREE but we would love you to register here to secure your place.

Keep an eye out also for when the World of WearableArt™ takes to the streets. Rumour has it that WOW®’s special guests, monks from the legendary Shaolin Monastery in Henan, China will be somersaulting, spinning and taking flying leaps outside of Te Papa on Saturday 27 October at 1pm.