Ever since her first foray into the World of Wearable Arts, Tracey Vickers has been planning her next one.

The Herbert artist has just found out her second entry has made it to the 2025 finals, which will take to the Wellington stage in September.

This year’s entry, which is top secret until opening night, is more complex than last year, but Tracey says in some ways the whole process was easier because she learned from experience.

“I knew what was to be expected, but there's still a lot to get through . . . and then there was like this added expectation, because people were like, ‘oh no, you'll get in’, and I'm like, ‘it's not as easy as that!’.”

Tracey has been working on the construction of her piece since the start of last year, “chipping away” at it in her evenings and spare time, between balancing family life with two children, and her furniture restoration and upholstery business.

Her 2023 Maiden of the Ferns entry took her more than 500 hours to complete, and is made of recycled upholstery scraps, plastic packaging, EVA window seals, Worbla and sequins.

This entry took longer to make, and Tracey uses recycled soft plastics and milk bottles, which she has “transformed beyond their everyday appearance”.

It also involved a lot more experimenting, she says.

“I learned so much from last time, like all the construction, cause when my Maiden of the Ferns came back, there were little bits that I had to fix up, just the wear and tear of it, so that taught me like, ‘oh, won't do that this time around’.”

It was also more “tedious”, she says.

“More handcraft, like, a lot more. A lot more to sew by hand.”

The entire entry process was less daunting though, because Tracey knew what to expect, but she was still anxious waiting to hear if she had made the finals.

Tracey's Maiden of the Ferns on stage at the World of Wearable Arts Show in 2023. Photo: Supplied

The first step was sending away photos of her entry, and when she heard she’d made it through to the next round, there was a week of going, ‘how am I going to send this?’ and then more than a week spent making the boxes to pack it up and send it in.

“You've got to make sure they're still. They're so fragile and you’ve got to kind of think of how to pack it so it's not gonna break, move and shift around on its journey.”

That was mid-May, and Tracey found out earlier this month she had made the cut. 

“So yeah, I had a good seven weeks of waiting, and longer than that, because you know, when you’re packing it . . . it's on your mind.

She would have been “gutted” if she didn’t get through to the finals, after the amount of time spent on her piece.

“Like everyone would be, you know.

“But, you've got to also think, well, if it's not meant to be, then it's not meant to be, and I think I would've maybe tried to rework it and use it for something else.

“You go into this knowing it's not guaranteed, but yeah, I would've had a sad week!” 

This year’s WOW theme is “Rise - Ignite what lies within”.

The categories are Aotearoa (entries inspired by Aotearoa New Zealand), Avant Garde (experimental and unorthodox), Open (no boundaries), Air (something that can fly, float or levitate), and Neon (a celebration of colour, illumination and things that glow

in the dark).

When Tracey was working on Maiden of the Ferns, she had several other ideas up her sleeve for another go, but the break between her 2023 entry and this year’s was a necessary one.

It allowed her time to work through her ideas before she began construction early in 2024.

This creation involved more experimentation and also some failures, but she relished the learning.

“It's just so different, and so there's a lot to work through, you know, things to make things work.”

She made the theme work with her idea, rather than creating something around the theme.

“I'm so excited this time. I know what to expect this time round. Last time it was a bit of the unknown. I did push myself more this time.” 

And, next time? 

“If there’s a next time . . . but I’ve got more ideas I didn’t follow through with with this one . . . so I’ll definitely try and incorporate some of them into the next piece.”