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Monday 18 October 2010

The Word Dress

On Saturday I read a new fairy tale at the Lancaster Literature Festival. And I am incredibly lucky because I got to read it wearing this...

The dress was made by bridal designer Jennifer Pritchard Couchman from several copies of Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales (courtesy of Virago Press). The story I read, 'A Book Tale', was commissioned by Litfest and featured a dress made of grass and rain, a dress made of smoke and feathers, and, of course, a dress made from the pages of books. I love books more than almost anything, but I never expected to end up dressed in them. Wearing a dress made from over 2500 pages was one of the most peculiar and exciting things I've ever done!


There are lots, lots more pictures of the dress at every stage of the process here.

The Lancaster Literature Festival runs until the 24th October and there are still lots more fantastic events to come, including a reading tonight from Ali Shaw author of The Girl with Glass Feet, and a brilliant looking storytelling event on Wednesday called The Court of the Queen of Claywood Flats. The Word Dress will remain on display in The Storey throughout the festival.


All photographs by Jonathan Bean @Litfest. Creative Commons: some rights reserved.

23 comments:

  1. Wow, brilliant! But it doesn't look like the most comfortable thing to wear...was it made to fit you, Claire?

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  2. Yes, it was. It wasn't actually as uncomfortable as you'd expect, I was just more concerned about accidentally damaging it as I can be clumsy at the best of times, and more so when I'm nervous!

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  3. That dress is stunning, both in concept and execution! You look just like a fairy tale... on more than one level. Haha.

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  4. Wow, that is magnificent! It looks gorgeous on you, and you look gorgeous in it!

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  5. Thank you for your lovely comments. I'm still stunned by the dress. I can't quite believe it's possible to wear it or that I wore it!

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  6. Wow! What a stunning dress! Hope you didn't get too many paper cuts!

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  7. Oh mon Dieu!!!
    This dress is to die for!
    You are amazing in it. You look like a real princess...well after all, all momen are, n'est ce pas?
    ;-)

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  8. Wow Claire how amazing. The "Book Tale" sounds fascinating too x

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  9. Merci, Papillon Bleu :-)
    And thank you, Ruthie, nothing's confirmed yet but hopefully the story will be published at some point x

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  10. What a unique and classy dress and you look stunning!

    I love your blog, even if I don't stop often enough to make comments.

    Have a great weekend.

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  11. Thank you, Ecrivain Mere. Hope you're having a lovely weekend!

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  12. GORGEOUS!!!! I am beyond smitten with that dress...you can tell it was made to fit YOU. It's truly exquisite.
    This is my first time here...and I'm thrilled to have stubbled on it. :)

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  13. Hello! I'm a new reader and I'm SO happy to have found your wonderful blog! I can't get over this dress, it's absolutely perfect. Thank you so much for posting pictures of it, I look forward to reading more of your posts! :).

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  14. P.S. Is there anywhere we can read your story? It sounds wonderful!

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  15. Love it! What fun that must have been!

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  16. Thanks Brittany and Jaime. It was brilliant fun! The story is going to be available online as an ebook but the date of publication hasn't been confirmed yet. I'll post more details on here as soon as I get them.

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  17. I was just wondering whether the book is available on ebook yet?

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  18. Hi vk-ray, the ebook will be coming out on the 11th June. I'll make sure I put the link up here as well as on my new blog then.

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  19. How did they make that dress? It's so wonderful!

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