Wedding transformation for students' dissolving dresses

DESPITE being exquisitely detailed and costing hundreds – if not thousands – of pounds, wedding dresses are usually only worn for a matter of hours.

Now their "throwaway" nature has become the focus of a new exhibition by students at Sheffield Hallam University, who have created dresses with joints that dissolve when they come into contact with water. After the wedding dresses, which have been made by an unlikely pairing of fashion and engineering students, are worn, they can then be transformed into five new garments.

The clothes, each showing a stage of the transformation process, are now on public display at Sheffield Hallam University's Furnival Gallery.

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Fashion design lecturer Jane Blohm said: "The students wanted to challenge the notion that a wedding dress should only be used once and aimed to explore modern society's attitudes towards throwaway fashion.

"The project is a union between art and technology which explores the possibilities of using alternative materials for our clothing.

"The wedding gown is perhaps one of the most iconic and symbolic garments in humanity's wardrobe and represents the challenges of throwaway fashion.

"In order to reduce fashion's impact on the environment, the fashion industry must begin to challenge conventional attitudes and practices. The exhibition demonstrates what could be possible when design and scientific innovation combine forces."

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Textiles are now the fastest-growing waste product in the UK and about 74 per cent of the two million tonnes of clothes bought each year end up in landfill.

A Sustainable Marriage runs until Sunday at the Furnival Building in Arundel Gate.

The dresses will also be on display during the university's Creative Spark 2010 exhibition, which runs from Saturday, May 29, to Sunday, June 20.