Paper or plastic?

The Textiles and Clothing 326 class chose both.

The 20 students enrolled in Experimental Design and Presentation each designed dresses made of plastic earlier in the semester and just finished their paper garments.

“The assignment was to make a wearable garment substantially from paper,” said Jane Farrell-Beck, professor of textiles and clothing.

The class focuses on the use of nontraditional and recycled materials to create garments and accessories. Along with the garment-designing assignments, the students also will create a portfolio to use in interviews.

For this four-week assignment, Farrell-Beck said students could use anything made of paper, as long as the final product was wearable. The students had to think about movement, durability and comfort while designing their garments.

Some of the dresses will be worn in the department’s fashion show next semester.

The objective of the assignment was to be creative with a challenging material, Farrell-Beck said. Using paper allowed the students to be more creative and get away from thinking about the norm, such as the clothing hanging in their closets, she said.

Farrell-Beck said she enjoys seeing the students work on the project during class because they get ideas and learn from each other.

“The class is a good outlet for creativity,” said Joni Elsbecker, senior in apparel merchandising, design and production.

For this project, she designed a cape made from a design that she printed out using the Pointcarre computer program.

Kristin Dunmead, senior in apparel merchandising, design and production, made her dress out of facial tissue. She used two and a half boxes of Kleenex to complete her project, she said.

Nicole Wiltgen, junior in apparel merchandising, design and production, used colorful crumpled magazine ads held together with tape and wire to create a strapless dress.

Some other dresses were made from pink slips, a seed corn sack, crepe paper, Tootsie Pop wrappers, shredded paper, wallpaper samples, sheet music, phone book pages and wedding aisle liner.