5 July 2023
Catwalk Arts judge and former WOW winner Philippa Stichbury-Cooper shares the unusual way in which she was invited to join the Warkworth wearable art competition’s judging panel. PLUS, her top tips on how to create a winning entry.
Everyone has a guilty pleasure and for Catwalk Arts judge Philippa Stichbury-Cooper it’s shoes.
Shoes are also the guilty pleasure of Catwalk Arts co-organiser, Shona Pickup, so when Philippa walked into a Harbour Hospice fundraising event two years ago wearing shoes with bright pink flowers on them, it was all Shona could do not to follow Philippa.
“I could feel Shona’s eyes on me as I walked around the room,” Philippa says. “Then the next thing I know she was sidling up to me. ‘Love the shoes,’ she said.”
The two women got talking and Shona learned (from Philippa’s proud husband, Mark) that Philippa, from Pohuehue near Warkworth, is a former art teacher who has been a finalist in the World of Wearable Art (WOW) show an incredible eight times, and that she won the New Zealand category of WOW in 2015. A few weeks later Philippa received a phone call from Shona asking her to join the Catwalk Arts judging panel.
This year marks Philippa’s second year on the panel alongside Coconut Gallery clothing store owner Maxine Axford and Colin Stables, owner of The Photo Store in Warkworth. She was very impressed with the high standard of entries in last year’s show and is hoping to see an even wider range of entries this year.
If you haven’t entered this year’s show, do it now, she encourages. “It’s not too late and it’s a fantastic experience.”
The key to a winning entry is to create something that’s quirky, or that will make the judges look twice, Philippa says. Entries that have a good story behind them do well, she says. “And the workmanship is important too.”
The piece that won Philippa the New Zealand category at WOW in 2015 was a costume she’d called ‘On Reflection’. “The garment had to be black, red or white, or a combination of those colours, and it had to reflect the culture of New Zealand. My garment was created from the story of my Great Great Great Grandmother who had run away from England disguised as a boy on a ship and sailed to New Zealand to find her boyfriend. They were the first English setters to be married in Wellington and they married in a raupo (flax) hut on a beach in Petone. The whole garment represented her journey and what she met when she came to New Zealand, as well as the history and culture she brought with her.”
Philippa no longer has that garment, as all winning entries are added to WOW’s coveted collection. But she is very kindly displaying four of her entries that made the WOW finals at this year’s Catwalk Arts, which will provide an extra ‘wow factor’.
