The Vellum Paper Dress

The very fist time I ever saw paper dresses was at our neighbor’s house when I was in grade school. Eileen and Christine Horlen dressed up their paper dolls in what seemed to be stylish paper garments that were fastened with tabs. They folded the tabs unto the flat paper dolls and changed the look of their dolls at a whim.

This fascinated me since I was getting bored with the transformable Voltes Five robot that my mom brought home from her Japan tour. At some point, the girls who were also awestruck with my high tech toy agreed to exchange playthings for 2 days. I remember that I kept making excuses to extend playing with their paper dolls until the day when mother asked where my new robot was.

This particular memory surfaced with a smile while I was studying a white vellum dress that was on exhibit at the first year anniversary of Museum of Arts and Design in New York last fall. This mesmerizing dress of vellum strips is so cleverly constructed. It was unquestionably more beautiful than the black bustier of a thousand cranes that was my second favorite.

Favorite or not, isn’t it funny how certain objects perceived as beautiful can trigger memories which may have otherwise been deeply buried in the subconscious?