This white wedding dress is so elaborate  and stunning that you’re never going to believe what it’s made of – toilet paper. The one-of-a-kind dress was created by art student Olivia Mears, from Asheville, North Carolina. She used only 11 rolls of toilet paper, 100 ft. of tape and lots of glue to put the whole thing together.

The dress was made for a local event called the Annual Cheap Chic Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest, sponsored by Charmin, a toilet paper company. “I learned about the contest with only a few weeks to prepare the dress,” said Olivia. So she worked on the project for about 20 hours, and came up with a real winner.

Olivia is currently a student at Western Carolina University for Art Education. She creates Victorian and fantasy-inspired pieces as a part of her work, and she wanted the same themes to reflect in the toilet paper dress. “Based on Victorian ball gowns I decided on a tiered train, embroidered corset style bodice, and the layers of roses and ruffles,” she said. “But to make it more contemporary I dropped the sleeves, let the bottom drape down naturally, and opened the front of the dress.”

The dress itself appears quite fragile, but it is actually built around a strong bodice, reinforced with packaging tape. Around the bodice, it erupts into frothy, rose-studded frills that go all the way down to the bottom. She modelled the dress herself; getting into it required a lot of wiggling, but there wasn’t much risk of ripping.

Her pet cat did pose a few risks – he was eyeing the toilet paper, clearly wanting to make a happy mess. But she cleverly distracted him by giving him a roll before she began the project. “I sacrificed a roll of toilet paper to my cat before starting on the dress, and he took another while I wasn’t looking. He was occupied with that for a while,” said Olivia.

Unfortunately, the beautiful paper dress didn’t win last year’s contest; it was voted 15th out of around 1,400 entries. Olivia plans to enter again this year, with a lot more time for preparation. She said that fashion design is a hobby for now, but she dreams of going to Los Angeles some day to design costumes.

Photos: Olivia Mears/Avant Geek