The WearableArt half of the museum displays winning costumes from past competitions: gowns built from corrugated cardboard, dresses studded with LEDs, headpieces resembling deep-sea creatures. The lighting is theatrical and the pieces are surprisingly sophisticated — closer to sculpture than to fashion in any conventional sense.
Sharing the building is a collection of around 140 classic cars, from a 1900 Wolseley through to muscle cars and oddities. The pairing is unusual but it works, partly because both collections reward slow looking and partly because they are equally well presented. The museum is on the southern outskirts of Nelson, an easy bus ride or a fifteen-minute drive from the centre.