Thread for Thought

I stumbled upon the contest Cheap-ChicWeddings.com sponsored for the most impressive wedding gowns made of — wait for it — toilet paper! Yes, this humble stuff is the focus of an annual challenge to use as the sole fabric of a wedding dress. I’m always interested to learn how technology affects textiles and by extension, fashion, but it’s equally interesting to be confronted with garments made of material whose primary function is not the building block of a dress (some will recall my earlier post on a similar duct tape prom dress competition). Yet another difficulty was probably disguising the “fabric” so it concealed its bathroom origins.

Though I myself have never tackled such a garment, challenges working with this particular paper would, I imagine, include transparency and flimsiness. But like all materials, I suspect experimenting with various brands would be part of the process, finding the texture, weight, stiffness, etc., that best suited various parts of the garment. Frankly, the whole contest reminds me a bit of the Charmin “quilted” toilet paper ads of bears and things sewing toilet paper for a supposedly softer, quilted product. It strikes me as hilarious that non-cartoon animals tackle this task… and in the form of wedding dresses, no less! Following are 2009’s winners.

First place winner:

Ann Kagawa Lee's toilet paper wedding dress

the back

matching hat

Though this contest is on the alternative side of crafty fashion, paper dresses are not actually new. The 1950s paved the way for this temporary and flimsy fashion by integrating more and more rapid obsolescence in products, from seasonal cars models to kitchen appliances, aggressively marketed as lifestyle essentials. Many historians attribute the ready acceptance of these sped-up trends to a pervasive feeling of impermanence, due in no small part to the fear and doom of nuclear war. It is with some irony that the government itself looked to paper as an alternative to cloth.

In the 1960s the government began experimenting with paper textiles. Paper’s light weight, insulating qualities, and cheapness made it an attractive choice for disposable combat garments, parachutes, and pup tents. The idea went viral when a corporation adopted the idea: in 1966 the Scott Paper Company used a paper dress as a gimmicky marketing ploy where for $1 women could buy a rather shapeless paper dress and get Scott coupons. To the surprise of many (including Scott Paper), women actually loved the dresses (though the color apparently rubbed off easily) and Scott sold half a million of them in 8 months. Fashion designers jumped on the bandwagon soon afterwards, and the paper dress craze lasted for the next few years.

Scott Paper dress, 1966

Here is perhaps the most recognizable paper dress, the 1960’s Campbell’s Soup dress that was inspired by the work of Andy Warhol — expendability and easy reproduction was central to the Pop Art movement, after all. These were produced by Campbell’s Soup as an advertising campaign (see the ad here). It’s a classic example of how fashion intersects art and industry:

Warhol's Campbell's Soup dress of the '60s

The infatuation with paper clothes didn’t last long. They tore easily, were highly flammable, and a bit too fad-ish to last past 1969. Though the full-blown craze died out decades ago, there are still those who use paper as a deliberately challenging material:

phonebook paper dress by Jolis Paons, 2008

And a 1960s version of similar concept:

phonebook paper dress by Waste Basket Boutique by Mars of Asheville

Hussein Chalayn constructed a paper airmail dress that you could write on, fold up and send, and finally wear, humorously playing with ideas of original textile function, disposability, and usefulness:

Hussein Chalayn paper airmail dress, 1999

Designer James Rosenquist created a papery suit out of Tyvek®, a nonwoven fabric made from spun-bonded olefin, adding gender to the mix of concepts (why weren’t paper clothes made for men in the 60s?):

Hugo Boss, designed by James Rosenquist, spring 1998

Leona Scull-Hons had a performance art piece where she wore an elaborate paper dress throughout the day and then sat in a chair in the gallery every evening to sew all the tears. Though I didn’t see the piece myself, I love how she incorporated the female-dominated tradition of sewing and mending, utilizing the frailty of paper to accelorate the breakdown process of clothes.

Leona Scull-Hons, "Mend," 2002

I thought I’d leave off with the paper gown we are probably most familiar with today, though it was invented in the mid 20th century alongside the obsolete paper dresses. Keeping in mind how awful these feel, can you imagine purchasing one to wear in public??

Further Reading:

• “Fashion: Real Live Paper Dolls,” Time Life article, March 1967
• Fear and Fashion in the Cold War, by Jane Pavitt
• DIY paper dresses

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As friends and family already know, I love me some anatomical charts, grotesque dissections of the intricate layers of the human body, old-timey skeletons and medical charts of muscle groups and the nervous system, etc. It appeals to my love of dissection in general, I think: peeling away layers of a body — or a topic (i.e. fashion) — in order to better understand the interconnectivity between seemingly disparate systems and subjects. It has therefore been will great relish that I’ve explored the blog Street Anatomy which collects art, design, and fashion, as related to anatomy (check out the Fashion and Products + Apparel categories). Here are some of my favorites:

"Vertebrae" necklace c. 2002 by Molly Epstein, Temple student. Glass-filled nylon.

And I was blown away at the hand-bleached skeleton hoodie:

by Derek Bones Bo, using bleach like fabric paint

Another, more shameful, addiction I’ve indulged lately is Lady Gaga videos. Lady Gaga shares my fascination with anatomy, often merging the robotic and mechanical with flesh and blood in her always deliciously ridiculous outfits. Several of her videos feature men with metal prostheses — a jaw, an eye patch — and she herself assumes a kind of crippled robot appearance after falling from a balcony during a lovers’ scuffle:

Paparazzi video

This photo is terrible quality, but it still gives the full package of this awesomely crazy ensemble — and yes, those are braces she’s clutching (while in stilettos, no less!):

"Paparazzi" video

Though it’s more of a brace gone awry, the costume very much reminds me of the robot woman in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), playing with the idea of anatomy that mimics humans’ but is actually android:

Fritz Lang's "Metroplis" robot

I love this double bustier, which highlights how somewhat arbitrarily the corset (an exoskeleton if ever there was one) has dictated where breasts fall –

"Paparazzi" video

sometimes pushed flat (as in the 16th century),

Hans Holbein's "Jane Seymour," 1536

sometimes hoisted up to the collarbone.

David's "Comtesse Daru," 1810

And while this exaggerated, padded ribcage / spine seems edgy in 2009…

"Bad Romance" video

it was downright scandalous in 1938 when Elsa Schiaparelli designed the dress version (which I want sooooo bad, by the way):

Elsa Schiaparelli's skeleton dress, 1938

Even when her costumes don’t mimic metal armor, Lady Gaga favors clothes that are extremely restrictive, and hard or voluminous to the point of hilarious and delightful impracticality: essentially sartorial exoskeletons that often cover her very head and face. I highly recommend youtubing her full videos even if you don’t like her music, but beware: they are highly addictive and you too might end up loving her somewhat against your will.

Like every so-called cutting edge, influential trend setter, Lady Gaga is not without her influences. I see a lot of Helmut Newton (possibly my favorite fashion photographer) in Lady G’s style:

Helmut Newton's "Jassara," 1977

Helmut Newton's "Jane Kirby," crutches, 1977

Newton had a series juxtaposing live models with identical mannequins, as on the cover of his fantastically awesome book:

Helmut Newton's "Berlin," 1994

He also had an usual series of ads that were actually x-rays of the products (jewelry, shoes), directly comparing and contrasting the metal prongs and hinges to the bones and joints of the women wearing the baubles:

Helmut Newton's X-Ray, ad for boot by Karl Lagerfeld

Helmut Newton's "X-Ray," Van Cleef and Arpels ad, 1979

As much as I myself love adorning my body with beautiful underwear and clothes and jewelry and hats, there’s something beautiful, raw and powerful in the brutal functionality of human anatomy. Being somewhat of a prude in terms of body coverage, the idea of wearing modest layers that suggest the stripping away of clothes (and skin) appeals to me greatly, also satisfying my  penchant for the grotesque.  It’s not such a leap to see the relationship between structural skeletons, supportive braces / prosthetics, and protective armor, right? But what is it about these hard bodies that make them so repulsive, and yet enticing? The frailty and strength of the human form? Could it be related to our growing obsession with (corporate) transparency, coupled with a need for structure? It’s an idea, anyway.

See my post on Vamps for more on skeletons, sex, and death.

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