the abbreviated reign of “neon” leon spinks

CONVENIENCE ISN’T ALWAYS ENOUGH 107
America excitedly donned similarly flimsy, poorly fitting, and not partic-
ularly comfortable disposable paper attire in an ill- conceived effort to be
stylishly modern. One paper-dress maker alone, West Asheville, North
Carolina–based Mars Manufacturing, reportedly churned out one hundred
thousand dresses each week. Department stores set up boutiques
devoted to paper fashion, and Manhattan trendsetters and small-town society
matrons alike flocked to paper-dress balls. Designers such as Dior
and Halston created haute couture for the upper-crustiest of clients, while
the less affluent could make do with the paper dress offered by General
Mills for $1 plus a box top from Betty Crocker instant au gratin potatoes.
Life magazine, then a definitive voice in popu lar tastes, ran a photo spread
on disposable fashion, and happily announced that “this is the year of the
paper dress that can be worn and then just tossed in the wastebasket.”
Only a worried wool merchant, perhaps, would have disputed the conclusion
that paper dresses were the first wave of a wonderful new disposable
future, in which humans would enter the world swathed in paper and ultimately
leave it the same way.
But then, with the same spectacular suddenness with which it had
emerged, the paper dress fad fizzled and vanished. Today, the last few
remaining specimens of 1960s paper dresses linger in eBay advertisements,
thrift-store inventories, and museum collections, and we are left to
ponder a massive, paradigm-shifting trend that, as it turned out, never
actually happened. Nevertheless, paper dresses were also something more
than just another deluded bit of 1960s silliness, like Day-Glo vinyl go-go
boots or Nehru jackets. They became an extreme symbol of a massconsumption
culture tied inexorably to planned obsolescence, in which
prosperity depended upon people’s continual willingness to toss aside
yesterday’s prized possessions and acquire new ones. And although paper
dresses ultimately flopped, the notion of inexpensive, ephemeral fashion
eventually resurfaced—albeit in somewhat less fragile form—and became
a staple at shopping malls across the land.