The disappearing dress is real and with 74% of our discarded clothing consigned to landfill, someone has to do something!

Actually when former Valentino employee and catwalk designer in her own right Helen Storey, phoned Scientist Tony Ryan after hearing him talk on the radio, her mission was to explore potentials beyond the scope and remit of current fashion industry practice.

Renowned for her exhibitions ‘Primitive Streak’ and ‘Mental,’ which have toured worldwide, Storey’s latest work sponsored by Sainsbury, is again a combination of fashion and progressive thought.

“Wonderland is where fashion and science collide,” says Storey, who has used new materials developed in the Polymer Centre at Sheffield University and textiles developed in association with Interface at the University of Ulster, to create beautiful clothes that dissolve in water.

“We are watching a ballet of chemistry”, she explains as we view a lace gown gracefully melting into an inky memory when lowered slowly into the clear, still pool, “and what I’m doing here is highlighting possibilities.” (We are at the launch of The Disappearing Dress at the London College of Fashion). “These are possibilities that can only happen when you get different disciplines together.” Storey has artfully used fashion and beauty as a way to access the debate of sustainability and while conventional fashion approaches have explored various solutions – recycling being our most immediate but still fairly ineffective answer, this is much bigger.

From 2001 to 2005, national spend grew by 21% despite the fact that pricing dropped by 14%. That’s over two million tonnes of clothing bought each year, or a suit case per person per year. A whole lot of landfill choking the planet then.

But there is another aspect of Storey’s work that comes into play. “I want people to be in touch with the feeling of loss. I’ve put a lot of work into these dresses and they can dissolve in moments. See it as a metaphor for our disappearing world,” she says. “And lets all do something about changing the way we live.”

The Disappearing Dress is touring in venues nationally and can be seen next at Meadowhall Shopping Centre in Sheffield June 19th to July 9th. However visit her website below if you are interested to find out more about a woman who is as far away from the world of vacuous fashion as it is possible to be.

Helen Storey is currently working on the disappearing bottle. When the water is drunk, the bottle is no more.

Associated Links
www.helenstoreyfoundation.org
www.showstudio.com/wonderland
www.fashion.arts.ac.uk/exhibitions.htm

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