A Waihī student tailored her way to the top at a national wearable art competition last month.
The Toi wearable art competition is part of Showquest, which is a nationwide performing arts platform for schools, and runs in collaboration with the World of Wearable Art.
While there wasn’t a physical national final, participants from the regional events were judged on their photos and written descriptions of their garments.
Waihī College year 11 student Zoe-Beth Naisby was awarded as a national finalist and took out the best interpretation of design for her work called Recycled Romance.
Waihī College visual art teacher Paige Kingston said she was “over the moon” for Zoe-Beth to be recognised as a national winner.
“There were some really innovative and imaginative entries across the country and it was awesome for her to be recognized alongside so many other talented young people.”
16-year-old designer Zoe-Beth told The Profile she was “so shocked”, proud and overcome with excitement when she heard the news.
Zoe-Beth said it encouraged her to continue to create in a wearable arts context.
Her award winning design, Recycled Romance, was based on a rose in its fully blossomed state, she said.
“I really liked the silhouette of the rose design I came up with and I feel like roses are a flower that I never seem to look past.”
But the creation process didn’t come without its hurdles.
“Honestly, the whole process was extremely challenging, and every step took so much thought and testing,” Zoe-Beth said.
Her first challenge was finding a suitable material to make petals out of – that’s when she came up with the idea to use the aluminium school lunch tins because they were light and could hold their shape, she said.
Zoe-Beth made the skirt with boning to hold its shape, and attached every petal onto it with safety pins, she said.
To put the skirt on and off, Zoe-Beth said she had to remove the top layer of petals and then reattach them once the skirt was on.
Even though the top half of the garment had “surprisingly” less issues, “it was almost impossible to walk in my garment”.
Despite it being a difficult process, Zoe-Beth said it “simply doesn’t matter when you have the final product in front of you”.
Zoe-Beth’s “trick” for bringing about inspiration was to look at works of art such as paintings, drawings, writing, music, photography or short films, she said. “Exposing myself to the things and people I love kind of naturally triggers inspiration.”
But her biggest influence in wearable art and design was “definitely my grandma”, where Zoe-Beth said she got her creativity from.
“Also just the art of noticing the little things around me has led me to pick up inspiration from the beautiful little things that sometimes go unseen.”
Zoe-Beth’s advice for students who are just starting out in wearable art was “don’t be scared”.
“Sometimes it can be scary to put your own personal ideas and designs out there for people to see, but don’t be scared and don’t dial down your ideas to what you think people will like more,” she said.
“Good art is authentic.”
