Who is going to do laundry in space?
Forty years ago Neil Armstrong made his giant leap for mankind when he stepped onto the moon’s surface. In the years leading up to that July 20, 1969 event, imaginations had been running wild with what life would be like in lunar cities and how we would dress for deep space travel. Star Trek had been on the air since 1966, and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, had been a film hit in 1968; both looked at variations of contemporary fashion for the future but as textile designer Julian Tompshin quipped ”Who is going to do laundry in space?”
The answer was disposables! In the fall of 1966 the paper dress had been launched as a novelty. Paper and other disposable materials, such as reemay, were soon being used to create ephemeral fashion favourites.
Surprisingly, the flickery black and white images of the lunar landing seemed anticlimactic, and interest in futurism and modernity declined almost immediately as fashions turned towards the ’back to nature’ hippie movement that would become more of a headline the following month at an outdoor concert called Woodstock.
However, for the three years before the lunar landing, everything was about the world of tomorrow and outer space. All these examples of paper and disposable dresses date between September 1966 and July 1969. If you want to know more about the paper dresses fad you can order a copy of Ready to Tear: Paper Fashion of the 60s, or contact us through our website.
View of our Ready to Tear travelling exhibiiton of 1960s paper dresses
I was 17 in 1967. I lived this era. I also sent away for a $1.00 ‘aluminum’
foil’ dress. This dress was sold off the back of the Parkay Margerine box.
It arrived after two weeks. It came folded in a rectangle shape, all silver and some what crinkled. It was an A-Line shape and I looked like Twiggy in those days. I put it on and realized I wasn’t the kind of girl who had the hutzpah to wear it in public but I did enjoy wearing it for 15 minutes for my boyfriend that night. He liked it very much. We both laughed and I then put it away for ever. (He is my husband of 39 yrs and he still remembers it). It really would not have been durable enough to wear out. I just knew that little dress was part of some kind of marking of history but also that it was too impractical to be more than a short lived trend. Your paper dresses are certainly the Top-Drawer of the era. Thank you for putting all of them on one page. Betty, a 17 year old Ohioan in 1977.
Comment by Betty — September 14, 2009 @ 1:37 pm
I’ll never forget a banquet in high school that I wore a paper dress! This was in the mid 1960s. The cheerleaders were serving for the guys teams banquet. As I was moving about the room, I realized my paper dress started to tear! I had to leave … or else! What a night that way. These bring such “fun” memories!
Comment by Barbara — September 19, 2009 @ 12:59 pm
I have a love for paper dresses. Where is the fashion history museum in Guelph? I live in Toronto and sometimes make a trip out that way. I especially love With the Grain bakery….
Comment by Ingrid Mida — December 11, 2009 @ 3:39 pm
Hi Ingrid;
The museum doesn’t have a permanent home yet, the collection is actually located in Cambridge at the moment but we hope to be able to find a permanent location soon. If you keep checking in with the blog we will keep the museum’s location updated!
Jonathan
Comment by Kenn — December 13, 2009 @ 2:12 am