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Emma Whiteside, Auckland, NZ
World of WearableArt™ 2009; Creative Excellence - Fold; 1st Environment Award

Some people give up when told "You're being too ambitious" or "You can't do that", but Emma Whiteside sees it as a challenge and loves to prove these statements wrong. When she decided to enter the World of WearableArt™ competition in 2009, Emma already had a heavy work load in working towards a Bachelor of Industrial Design with Honours at Victoria University in Wellington. But she was keen to do something different and also aware that it was her last opportunity to enter WOW as a student – so in 2009 it was all on!

During her course she had designed products such as fridges, furniture and medical equipment so entering WOW would provide an opportunity to work with fashion instead and to use her design skills in the "real world". Emma says that she was a dancer when growing up, and she liked the idea of relating performance to the skills learnt in her design degree.

Before designing her costume, Emma had already decided on the material she would use. As a child she played at her parents' automotive radiator manufacturing plant in Auckland and made things from the scraps of copper used for car radiators. Emma says her childhood environment has been an inspiration for much of her work, and that even the smell of the copper takes her back to those years. When she had created a lamp and light shades from the copper two years previously, she had seen how well it reflected the light so knew it would look effective under stage lights. And using copper scraps made the entry eligible for the World of WearableArt™ Environment Award, which requires at least 85% of a garment to be made from recycled materials.

During a plane ride to Auckland, Emma sketched ideas in her drawing book and came up with the concept for Queen Adelaide. She decided on a royal theme, and says it was an ironic way to represent something that was disappearing from New Zealand. "Due to cheap imports, the radiator industry in New Zealand is dying. My appreciation of materials from studying design prevented me from forgetting this beautiful resource". Emma researched English royalty and chose Queen Adelaide, wife of William IV, as a good representative of recycling. The queen was known for her dislike of waste and had recycled her jewels into a coronation crown to keep costs down. Emma's final design reflected the hooped skirt fashionable in 19th century England.

In Auckland, Emma went to a radiator factory where she tipped the contents of the rubbish bins onto the floor so that she could sort through to find the best pieces. "The men in the factory thought I was going crazy, and even when I tried to explain the concept thought I had gone completely off the rails!" To save money in getting the material back to Wellington, Emma left all her belongings in Auckland and filled her bags with copper instead!

To get the shiny look she wanted, Emma had to clean the grimy copper with nail polish remover. She then trialled how she could attach the copper radiator 'rosette' shapes onto the dress. Advice for WOW entrants suggests that using glue isn't a good idea, so she was anxious to find one strong enough to hold the copper pieces. After asked people for their advice on which glue to use and testing lots of different types, Emma picked an industrial glue as the best option.

With the glue problem solved, Emma had to work out how she would place the 'rosette' shapes on her costume. She taped some on to a section of the dress, from bust to feet, so that she could figure out what sort of size gradient would be created. The radiator copper came in different widths so she decided to use the bigger pieces at the bottom of the dress and smaller ones as they moved up.

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