Skip's bra contains the WOW factor

If you had looked in Skip Williams' supermarket trolley a few months ago, you would have been forgiven for thinking she had a cleaning obsession.
But the multiple packets of pink rubber gloves weren't for some industrial-strength cleaning sessions, but for something far less predictable - a wearable arts creation.
The Te Puke woman is a straight-laced business systems analyst during the week but, on the weekends, she lets her inner creative diva emerge.
"It's kind of my random side that comes out," she said.
It all started after Skip and 9-year-old daughter Tasman attended the Montana World of WearableArt Show (WOW) in Wellington last year.
Admiring the weird and wonderful garments, Skip decided she wanted to give it a go herself.
"It's like, if they can do it, we can do it as well."
Skip had previously been to the Rotorua Wearable Creations'N Colour Awards, but decided she wanted to enter the "pinnacle" WOW event.
"I have always loved it and I thought I could give that a crack, just to cross it off my bucket list."
She never dreamed her creation - the "udder-wire bra" - would become a finalist and be paraded in the Wellington event.
Designers from 25 countries submitted entries for the awards with just 191 finalists chosen from the more than 300 entrants.
So when Skip received an email telling her she was a finalist, she was blown away.
"We just couldn't believe it. I was so shocked, I really was. Just to enter it was a goal."
Skip had already booked tickets to the event for Tasman and herself, where they will see her "bizarre bra" on stage in one of 19 shows seen by 45,000 people.
But now, she will also be heading to Wellington as a finalist.
She has been invited to attend the event's awards night, where she will brush shoulders with well-known designers at the after-show party.
And a judges' forum at Te Papa will give her tips for the next time she enters.
Skip designed the "udder-wire bra" for the Bizarre Bra section of the awards.
Starting with a plain black 12B bra, she created a piece portraying cow's udders - which is where the pink rubber gloves come in.
"It's a play on words. We had the name before the garment," she said.
"I had a few ideas, and started bouncing ideas off my daughter, and it grew from there."
The bra is a play on the quintessential Kiwi-ness of No8 wire and dairy farming.
Skip, with the help of Tasman, spent four weekends piecing the bra together.
Although competition rules prevent her from revealing exactly what the bra looks like, she can say that they used papier mache, hot pink paint, wire, cable ties and lots of rubber gloves to get the desired effect.
The hardest part of the process was finding a model to test the bra.
While professional models and dancers are used on the catwalk in Wellington, Skip needed a model to make sure the bra was strong enough to stand up to 19 shows and a choreographed routine.
With that challenge completed, they had to figure out how to get the bra to Wellington in one piece.
"How do you package up an udderwire bra? I had a huge box," she said.
"We were cracking up, thinking 'imagine if it went to the wrong location'."
Skip hopes to enter the competition again next year but, in the meantime, she will be sticking to her day job.
"This is going to stay a hobby on the side. I don't know if it will lead to bigger things," she said.
"I'm open to offers - Bendon or Triumph might be knocking on my door."
Tauranga bridal specialist Cherryl Marriott is also a finalist in the Bizarre Bra section of the WearableArt Awards.
Her inspiration came from having a mammogram.
"The double meaning [is] 'that's a load off my chest', meaning the worry of finding something wrong has been removed, as I'm clear for another year. I can stop worrying."
Cherryl previously entered the awards with daughter Tanya, and was a section finalist.
The grandeur of the circus was the inspiration for Donna Dinsdale's wearable art creation.
Donna is a finalist in the Tourism New Zealand Avant Garde: Inspired by the Circus section of the Montana WOW Awards Show.
The Te Puke woman, who is a fashion design tutor at the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic, has previously won awards in Westfield Style Pasifika.
Her WOW creation is a tribute to Monsieur Pierre Loyal, the first ringmaster in circus history, and the circus lion.