Toilet rolls on the fashion catwalk

ANGEL WINGS: Michelle Johnson, left, models the feathered toilet paper dress by Emma Bouquet.

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Emma Bouquet thought of peacocks and swan feathers when coming up with her dress made of toilet paper.

Called Taking Flight, her creation with feathered wings and train came in the top six for the Kleenex Cottonelle Couture Challenge. Emma, 19, says once she had started making the dress it reminded her of Roald Dahl’s story The Magic Finger.

The creation took about three and a half weeks to make from design process to finished garment.

Emma, who lives in Browns Bay and went to Rangitoto College, got the fashion bug from her mum, a pattern and dress-maker.

She says her first designs were for her Barbie doll when she was young.

"It’s how everyone starts off really."

She has also garnered inspiration from work experience at Miss Crabb boutique in Ponsonby.

Emma is studying a diploma in fashion design at NZ Fashion Tech in Auckland and says she enjoys being able to be so creative with her designs. "It’s really fun, I’m really enjoying it. And it helps to have someone in the family who can help."

After she finishes in November this year she hopes to become a full-time pattern-maker.

She says she’s more interested in the making rather than designing of clothes and would like to work in a small boutique. She has family in France and says she may go there one day.

The Kleenex Cottonelle Couture Challenge is a collaboration between Kleenex Cottonelle, NZ Fashion Tech and Air New Zealand Fashion Week.

It gives three students a place on the coveted runway at shows in the national fashion showcase in September.

The high fashion dresses were made from the simplest fabric of all – toilet paper.

Emma’s angelic dress narrowly missed the top three but she is delighted for her classmates Louise Barnes, Yao Chen and Lua Talaoloa E’etau, who will feature in Air New Zealand Fashion Week this year.

During the project 25,000 metres of Kleenex Cottonelle toilet paper was sewn, plumped, plaited, pleated and pampered into 22 dresses.

- © Fairfax NZ News