Paper clothing

However, some fancy dress costumes, hats, and fashionable accessories were made from crêpe paper during the early 20th century and in response to resource shortages before and during World War II.

[3] By the sixth century CE, the Chinese were using washi (mulberry paper made using ground bark, linen and hemp fibre) to make clothing.

[6] Some of the earliest records of paper armour are from the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE), where its invention as an accessible form of civilian self-protection is credited to Shang Suiding.

[7] In the late 19th century, the Hui people in Yunnan were still wearing armour made from 30-60 layers of bark paper, combined with silk and cotton.

This was considered fairly effective against musket balls and bayonets, which got caught and deflected by the layers of paper, although the armour proved less protective against breech loading rifles fired at close quarters.

[9] Paper clothing gradually disappeared in modern era China due to the development of mechanized production and scientific and technological advances which led to the appearance of many new and diverse alternative textiles.

[13] It also gained a key role in the kabuki theatre, where kamiko became the traditional costume for wagoto actors who wore it to show that their characters were fallible and physically weak as well as in financial straits.

[12] The nimaime's paper costumes were often decorated with a calligraphy pattern called fumi-hogo (literally: "letters-wastepaper"), to suggest that due to financial pressure, he had had to make his kimono out of old love-letters.

[12] One of the most significant areas of washi and kamiko manufacture was Shiroishi, Miyagi, which, for over four centuries was synonymous with sophisticated papermaking technology, including a form of embossed paper known as takuhon-shi.

[11] The persimmon juice turns the paper brown, producing an alternative shade to white kamiko, which can also be printed with woodblocks to create patterns and color.

[16] World War I (1914-1918) caused severe fabric shortages, especially of wool, and ready-to-wear suits made from spun and woven paper were developed in Germany and Austria in response.

[17] Prior to April 1917, when the United States entered the war against Germany, the American press regularly reported on how German inventiveness had created substitutes ("ersatz") for many raw materials, admiringly commenting on how German-made spun paper twine could be not only woven into doilies, but also functional damp-resistant cloths that replaced sackcloth and could be used to make corsets, aprons, work garments, and even parts of military uniforms.

[17] However, trade publications commented disparagingly on the "coarse and crude" textiles and relatively few people were enthusiastic for paper clothing even though it could be washed and was cheap.

[17] By the mid-1920s, American prosperity had reached such heights that most people could afford cloth and wool, and even the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 did not reawaken enthusiasm for paper garments.

[19][20] Newspapers suggested that crepe paper, if twisted tightly, could be crocheted or woven into stylish, rain-resistant hats, belts, handbags or accessories.

[19] During the Occupation of Paris, French milliners struggling with limited resources were forced to find creative solutions, and alongside wood-shavings and twine, newspaper and crêpe paper were pressed into service to manufacture innovative hats whose determined elegance and smartness acted as defiance towards the enemy.

[19] In the late 1950s, manufacturers such as the Scott Paper Company and Kimberly-Stevens developed bonded fabrics made from plant cellulose as a cheap and disposable alternative to traditional woven textiles in laboratory and healthcare environments.

[21][22] In 1965, an engineer for the Scott Paper Company asked his wife to design a simple dress in Duraweave to offer to prospective buyers in department stores.

[21] The garments failed to arouse commercial interest until April 1966, when Scott ran a promotional campaign for a new disposable tableware line, where they offered two different Duraweave dresses for $1.25 each via mail order, accompanied by a 52-cent voucher for the merchandise.

For the launch, Warhol personally silkscreened a design using the word "FRAGILE" onto the singer-actor Nico's dress during the event while she was wearing it, and signed it Dalí.

[21][29] Gordon intended the Poster Dresses to be purposefully simple, affordable and accessible, as a form of protest against the increasing elaboration and complexity of commercial paper fashion.

Various bonded paper materials were retailed under names such as Kendall's non-woven rayon "Webril"; "Ree-May", a spunbond polyester by DuPont; and "Kaycel", a fire-resistant 93% cellulose 7% nylon blend by Kimberly-Stevens that, it was claimed, could be washed and ironed up to 20 times.

[27] Paper dresses became a political tool in 1968 to accompany presidential campaigns such as those of Nixon, Romney, and Kennedy, as well as Nelson Rockefeller and Canada's Pierre Trudeau.

[21] Companies such as Butterfinger, Green Giant, Viking Carpets and Owens Corning offered paper dress giveaways to encourage customers to buy their merchandise.

[38] By 1969, however, the novelty of paper dresses was quickly wearing off as they were not very comfortable, their flat shift-dress shapes felt repetitive and lacked variety, and their fire- and water-proofing was unreliable.

[21] For a mainstream audience, however, paper clothing was mainly marketed as a functional option for traveling, for convenience, and for disposable garments for work and healthcare environments, such as hospital gowns, scrubs, and coveralls.

[21][22][18] For a Spring-Summer 1992 ready-to-wear collection for Comme des Garçons, Rei Kawakubo designed dresses made from polyester-rayon paper material intricately cut in traditional Japanese patterns to create an all-over lace texture.

[40] For Autumn-Winter 1998 Miuccia Prada designed a two-piece white dress with a pleated paper skirt applied with panels of thin plastic, and Junya Watanabe offered tunics made from non-woven cloth in Spring-Summer 1996.

In 1993, the same year that he graduated from Central Saint Martins, Chalayan created his "Airmail Dress" based upon air-mail envelopes that fold out into letter-paper.

[42] The Tyvek material used for the mailers inspired Chalayan to design an entire collection of "paper" polyethylene fashion in 1995, some of which featured air-mail stripes such as the jacket worn by Björk on the cover of her album, Post.