A 15-year-old British student has become an internet sensation after posting images of her final-year high school art project – a wedding dress made entirely from divorce papers – on Facebook.
Her task was to create a piece of artwork using the theme “Art and Word” and, having thought deeply about it, she decided to create a wedding gown from magazines pages but felt such a creation would have no meaning.
“I wanted to create a wedding dress with meaning.” Demi wrote in an email to ABCNews.com. “For me, the dress represents that too many people rush into marriage and end up getting divorced. I love the irony of the idea.”
The eye-catching outfit took Demi, a student at Lingfield Notre Dame School in Surrey, England, about two days to complete and required the use of about 1500 genuine divorce forms, each of them placed precisely.
She told ABCNews.com,”It was mainly trial and error being a very challenging piece. “I constructed the bodice with wire and then folded the papers (this was the most time consuming part) and stapled them on.”
When her project was completed, she put the image on Facebook to share it with a cousin in Italy and, “Within a week, it had had over 40,000 hits and people were approaching me to design their wedding dresses!
“Major designers have asked for copies. I’m passionate about fashion and design and am hoping someone will approach me with a work experience placement so I can turn my passion into a career.”
The school’s Head of Art, Claire Davis is quoted as having said that “Demi became charged, like electricity, when she had the idea for the dress.
“This was an incredibly ambitious piece and it took courage, patience and tenacity to see this through from concept to final piece.
At last count, Demi’s dress had nearly 50,000 likes.
