Welcome to WOW’s designer newsletter - a round up of news and inspiration curated especially for you.

The 2017 competition is speeding along at full pace, with today being the final garment hand in date for Australia, Hong Kong, China and Taiwan designers to use Mainfreight sponsored freighting. For more information about freighting your entry to Nelson, New Zealand, please visit our website.

We are thrilled to welcome a new staff member to the WOW wardrobe team. Kate Ruffell is stepping in for Wardrobe Administrator Sally Florance while she takes a year of parental leave. Please read more about Kate here.

We hope you enjoy this issue and we'd love to hear your feedback. Thanks for reading.

Read about Dylan Mulder's second week at Cirque du Soleil

At the start of my second week at Cirque du Soleil, I was eager to get onto the new laser cutter – a machine that uses a high-powered laser to cut 2D material at a fast rate. One of the tasks that I have been set by Cirque, is to demonstrate the power of this laser cutter and to show what it is capable of doing. I wanted to try a whole lot of materials out and within no time at all, I was in the zone. ...read more