JUNE 18 (Reuters) — If you ever wanted to flush your wedding dress, designers at the 11th annual Cheap Chic Weddings Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest are giving brides the option.
The competition, held in conjunction with Charmin for the fifth year, challenged people to design a wedding dress completely made from toilet paper.
“They have to use Charmin toilet paper. Any kind of tape, any kind of glue, and they can use needle and thread,” explained contest co-creator Laura Gawne.
“No closures, no Velcro, nothing. No attachment of fabric, nothing,” added co-creator Susan Bain.
Bain and Gawne, are sisters and started the competition as a way to promote their wedding site Cheapchicweddings.com.
For the first time the runway show and contest was held at popular Manhattan bridal store ‘Kleinfled’ and the winner will have their design turned into a ready-to-wear dress by the store.
Ten competitors from around the U.S. were brought to New York for the show and Donna Pope Vincler of Brentwood, Tennessee walked away the winner and $10,000 (USD) richer.
“It’s quite an experience to work on something. And then my daughter was the model and that means a lot of me, and my mom taught me how to sew when I was very young, so it’s like the three of us. And the design on the dress has three pedals, like an appliqué and that kind of stands for the three of us, the three generations,” said the first-time winner.
Vincler said it took her roughly three months to construct the dress and used 22 rolls of toilet paper and lots of tape and glue.
The top hat is made completely from toilet paper.
“It’s amazing how strong glue and toilet paper can be. Actually after I made it I was hitting on it like a drum because you can play it. It’s like, it’s very sturdy. And it’s just all toilet paper, sort of like if you were going to paper mache something. And so, I don’t even know how many layers I just did it till I thought it would stay together,” she explained.
The look features a removable train and jacket.
In second place was 2013 winner, Mimoza Haska from Surfside Beach, South Carolina.
“The bottom has pedals, it’s covered in pedals. And I actually burned them and pressed them down where they would look like real pedals with little veins if you get closer to them.”
Rounding out the top three was Carol Touchstone, who traveled to New York from Fort Lauderdale, Florida in a truck with the dress on a mannequin hog-tied to preserve the pedal detail.
“We have 4, 585 pedals that were all hand-cut and traced. And we used tape, glue and Charmin. And the hint of pink in here is all vintage Charmin from the 60’s that I found on Esty.”
