The dissolvable wedding dress

Green
Jen Aniston and Brad Pitt during happier times. / Reuters
Jen Aniston and Brad Pitt during happier times. / Reuters

According to the Wedding Report, the average wedding costs $28,000. Depending on the bride, a good percentage of that can be spent on the dress, a gown she will only wear once in her life, and the way marriage statistics are looking these days, perhaps money could be better spent. Cue: the dissolvable wedding dress.

British engineering students at Sheffield Hallam University have invented a wedding dress that breaks down into five separate pieces. Jane Blohm, a lecturer on the fashion design course at Sheffield Hallam, 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'."

5 incarnations of the dissolvable wedding dress. / Sheffield Hallam University
5 incarnations of the dissolvable wedding dress. / Sheffield Hallam University

We love the idea of a wedding dress coming apart and turning into a skirt, or a corset, that could potentially be worn again. In the UK, 74% of textiles end up in landfills, and we're betting that beneath those massive piles of garbage, you'd be sure to find some taffeta, lace and crinoline. So for the environmentally friendly bride looking to eliminate wedding clutter in the closet or the reminder of a marriage gone sour, the student designers have used a material that actually breaks down and dissolves when it comes in contact with water. Wearers just had better not cry at the wedding! [Fibre to Fashion]