ATOPOS Cultural Organization - Projects 2009

PAPERDRESS
Video from the exhibition
Marie Claire.it

PROJECT

PAPERDRESS
Disposable Fashion
From the Atopos
Collection, Athens
Fast Fashion Festival
Centerbox at Centergross
Bologna, Italy
07.09 - 09.09.2009

Artists

Media coverage

Press

Events

Destined to be worn once and then thrown away, the paper dresses that appeared in the U.S.A. for the first time in 1966 were launched by the paper manufacturers Scott Paper Company, in order to promote their products.
Originally advertising products, they were addressed to a consumer public that already used throw away cups, plates, table cloths, lighters and all sorts of other such objects. The unexpected success achieved by the first samples of these dresses led to the creation of "paper fashion", which inundated the U.S. market for approximately two years (1966-1968).
Fun and modern, paper garments were made in the spirit of their times, where experimentation in new industrial materials based on plastic or metal, was applied to daily life and fashion too. The new, non-woven materials used to manufacture them, gave the impression of paper, even where, apart from cellulose, their components included cotton, rayon, polyester fibers and new-technology synthetic fibers.
The many multi-coloured designs with images from all the visual stimulants of the time, contributed to their popularity. Pop, op art motifs or psychedelic, retro art nouveau designs, trade mark logos or even the faces of the 1968 election candidates, adorned the paper dresses, creating an exciting imaginative canvas of multi-coloured motifs.
After 1968 “paper fashion” went into decline owing to the fatigue induced

Installation from the project Paperdress

in the public by overexposure of the product on the one hand, as well as to the awakening of ecological concerns in society and the "return to nature" trend which went against throwaway products. The paper garments’ non woven materials shall find new fields of application in industrial and hygienic uses. In an original installation especially designed for the FAST FASHION FESTIVAL, the ‘PAPERDRESS’ exhibition presents part of the Athens-based ATOPOS Cultural Organization collection of disposable paper dresses from the sixties. The ATOPOS collection - the most complete, catalogued archive of the Sixties “paper fashion” internationally at the moment - is the starting point of the "RRRIPP! Paper Fashion" exhibition which was first shown at the Benaki Museum, Athens in 2007. In 2008 the exhibition was presented at Μusée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM), Luxembourg and in 2009 at ModeMuseum (MoMu), Antwerp.

Curator: Vassilis Zidianakis, Artistic Director of ATOPOS
Cultural Organization
Space Design: Metamorphossis, Architectural Design

Installation from the project Paperdress