Carolyn Enting
World of Wearable Art
Header image: Mandi Kingsbury, photographed by Charney Magri. Above, from top: Mandi Kingsbury posing in front of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE. Mandi Kingsbury on shoot with her WOW Supreme Award-winning Magpie. Her WOW entry in 2007, Motion & Stillness. Gerry O’Leary and Mandi Kingsbury.
Former World of Wearable Art (WOW) Supreme Award winner and international stylist Mandi Kingsbury has passed away aged 53.
Kingsbury suffered a severe multiple sclerosis (MS) attack in July that left her paralysed and no longer able to eat, drink or speak though completely aware of her surroundings. She died peacefully on September 7, 2024 at Nurse Maude Hospice, Merivale, Christchurch with her devoted partner Gerry O’Leary and her family at her side.
A proud Cantabrian, Kingsbury lived between Christchurch and Dubai working as a stylist, fashion designer and artistic director for 29 years.
Her career was kick-started when she won the World of Wearable Art (WOW) Supreme Award for her entry Magpie in 1994, which led to a job offer by Dubai couture house Arushi.
Kingsbury graduated with a diploma in textile design at Wellington Polytechnic and also worked as a SPFX technician on Sir Peter Jackson’s film Heavenly Creatures.
She entered WOW again in 2007, winning the Open section and becoming runner-up for her entry, Motion & Stillness, a personal protest against MS, which she has lived with since 2003.
At the time Kingsbury described MS as a ‘silent assailant’ and an ‘cruel, random, incurable physiological hacker’ that left her ‘unblemished on the outside’ to onlookers while inside she experienced blurred vision, inexplicable tiredness, numbness, weakness and cognitive problems.
‘From time to time it’s had me beaten. But recently, I’ve seen it as a form of inspiration. An opportunity to express my hidden fears and confusion. To gain strength from the chance to protest,’ said Kingsbury.
Kingsbury came to view MS as a gift and positively protested the disease including through ProtestMS, a group she set up to inspire and help others.
‘Attitude is a conscious choice and for me is one of the few things in my body I have 100 per cent control of,’ Kingsbury told Mindfood in 2010.
She described her WOW award-winning Motion & Stillness as ‘an abstract interpretation of the cold physiological facts set within an emotional human context’ and ‘the metal body forms inspired by those found in doctors’ surgeries and hospital rehabilitation wards—contain and hold the body inflexible, embodying the physical restraints caused by MS. The javelins further restrict the movement and symbolise the damaged “myelin sheath” and nerve shafts running through the brain—the characteristic “cause” of MS.’
World of Wearable Art founder Dame Suzie Moncrieff said re-reading what Kingsbury had written about her inspiration for Motion & Stillness was ‘heart-rending’.
Dame Suzie described Mandi as a valued and cherished member of the WOW community and ‘a most talented artist and designer’. ‘Mandi was always so positive and lived life to the full. She was an inspiration to all who knew her,’ said Dame Suzie.
Wētā Workshop’s Sir Richard Taylor said he was ‘deeply saddened’. ‘A wonderfully bright star has dimmed—and we are all the lesser for it. Mandi Kingsbury provided such a luminance upon this planet.’
Kingsbury worked for Arushi (1998–2003) as a designer and production supervisor specializing in couture embroidery and accessory effects and designed and embellished wedding and party gowns for Emirati women, including the UAE royal family, which she described as ‘an honour beyond my wildest imagination’.
Throughout her career, her clientèle included L’Oréal, Ralph Lauren, Wella, BurJuman and MAC. Kingsbury also undertook costume contracts for Sun International, Planet Hollywood and Swarovski. Her work appeared in many magazines including Vogue Taiwan and Vogue India’s début issue. She twice judged the Dubai World Cup fashion entries and went on to become a WOW international judge.
In 2023, she wrote and illustrated a children’s picture book Sumaya and the Magic Scorpion, where each collage illustration was built up with layers of card and painted in gouache.
In more recent years she worked alongside her partner, Dubai-based Irish architectural photographer Gerry O’Leary.
Despite her MS diagnosis, Kingsbury did not allow it to halt her career, even if at times it forced her to ‘go submarine’. In 2007 she told The Dominion Post, ‘You can’t predict what is going to happen with my disease and I’d hate it to take away anything from my life. I don’t want to be in the progressive stage and say, “I wish I had done that.”’
Kingsbury was admitted to hospital in Dubai in June when her mobility became impaired. She spent several weeks in hospital during which she suffered a severe MS attack that paralysed her. She was repatriated to New Zealand on July 28 to be near her family and receive further medical treatment, and a Givealittle fund-raising page created to help cover medical costs, as she was uninsured due to her pre-existing medical condition.
Carolyn Enting
Wendy Bown, copyright ©2013 by Steve Unwin Photography & Design Ltd.
Above, from top: Mandi Kingsbury with Sir Richard Taylor. Mandi on the World of Wearable Art Airborne shoot, 2013.
Carolyn Enting is a freelance writer and storyteller. She is the former editor-in-chief of Good and former associate editor of Mindfood.
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