2009

Paper Party Dresses

The ATOPOS collection and the 1960s paper dress phenomenon were the key inspiration for a collaboration between the Belgian fashion designers Dirk Van Saene (b. 1959) and Walter Van Bereindonck (b. 1957) with La Redoute in the context of the exhibition’s adaptation at the Mode Museum in Antwerp in 2009. Made of paper-like material, the two ‘Paper Party Dresses’ were produced and were made available in packages. Like their ‘ancestors’ in the 1960s they were put on sale on La Redoute’s website. With the ATOPOS collection as a starting point and a contemporary ‘take’ on the paper dress phenomenon in terms of using present-day paper-like fabrics such as Tyvek and today’s ‘department stores’ such as the internet, the dresses created by Van Saene and Van Bereindonck added to the legacy of the paper dress phenomenon in the twenty-first century.