World of WearableArt, the annual avant-garde competition where style, technology and performance converge, has announced the winners of its 2026 edition. The show, titled GLO!, named New Zealand designer Kayla Christensen's work 'Sacred Nightfall' as the top prize winner: a spectacularly noble, draped floral garment that nods to Indigenous ceremonial cloaks. Established in 1987, World of WearableArt invites entrants from around the world to sew and sculpt their most ambitious garments. This year's show drew on cultural traditions, nature, futurism and the chimerical in roughly equal measure, with whimsical and technically ambitious pieces paraded in a multimedia stage production. Performances of GLO! continue through 4 October at the TSB Arena in Wellington. Among the additional standouts singled out were 'Enchantress' by Ashish Dhaka of India, an iridescent insect creation by Katherine Bertram More of New Zealand, 'Lophii' by Joe Blanck of Australia, and 'Te Whare Eke Nei' by Glenda Hape of Ngati Pukeko. Other noted entries included 'Hen' by Zhiqian Li of China, 'Platinum' by Lisa Newsome, 'Ringing Off the Hook' by Deborah H. Carter and Ariel Biagini of the United States, 'MOTHER VAKA' by Vasemaca Tavola and Czarina Wilson, and 'My Ugly Duckling' by Shing Hei of the Hong Kong Design Institute. All images accompanying the announcement were courtesy of the artists and World of WearableArt, shared with permission. The competition remains one of the Southern Hemisphere's most distinctive intersections of craft, costume and spectacle, and this year's celebration of culture, nature and whimsy continues its decades-long run as a fixture of New Zealand's creative calendar.