For self-professed “Detail-Oriented Fashionista”, Van Tran, spending a total of three weeks at 4-5 hours a day brainstorming and creating a winning couture-inspired wedding dress out of hot glue, tape and 10 rolls of toilet paper was work well spent after she won the 12th annual Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest presented by Cheap-Chic-Weddings and Charmin.
As the grand prize winner, Tran also collected $10,000. Tran’s dress was also put on display at the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum.
Tran said that she came up with the concept of her dress, which she calls, “Winter Lust” after a blizzard that struck New York shortly after she moved from California.
“[It] was the first year touching snow ever,” she said. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be awesome if someone got married in a snowstorm?'”
Tran’s winning entry is the second that she has made in the annual Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest, but it is the first time that she’s made it all of the way to the final runway event which was held at the Haven Rooftop at the Sanctuary Hotel in New York in June. Entrants were judged on five categories: originality, beauty, creativity, the use of toilet paper, and workmanship.
Tran, who was born in Vietnam and moved to California at the age of three, now lives in New York and lives in a space that doubles as her studio. She is used to smaller spaces having to share with siblings while growing up, so she was used to having to clean up her space after working each day.
Tran wanted to create a design that was not obviously made from toilet paper. She insists the trick in achieving this goal for her was to treat the toilet paper as she would any other fabric she might have chosen to construct a dress from.
The mermaid-like dress featured a scalloped hem. She glued together each “feather strand” and cut individual toilet sheets in order to create a layered look. The cape of the dress was created using tape and cookie sheets created handmade toilet paper pearl buttons that she made from a diluted Elmer’s Glue solution.
The final accessory of a headpiece and veil was created by using glitter glue in order to create the look of a snow queen getting married in a snowstorm.
Tran says that she considers herself an artist before she considers herself a designer and that this is just one more step that she hopes will get her closer to her goal of getting into the costume design industry.
Tran has created something beautiful out of what most of us think of as an inexpensive material that we use every day. Her workmanship speaks for itself and creating a fantasy for your wedding fantasy that is truly your own can also take time and planning in order to make it all come out right.
For great ideas on making your wedding into something that best represents both of you, call Geri Simms at Atlanta Wedding Décor. We can turn your wedding dreams into a reality. We specialize in wedding drapery and event planning that will turn your wedding into something special and definitely one of a kind. Contact Geri today to schedule an appointment.
