Look of the Week: Gigi Hadid walks the runway in a packing tape mini dress

By Leah Dolan, CNN

(CNN) — First Rihanna’s bathrobe, now Gigi Hadid’s DHL tape dress — it seems that luxury fashion is looking right under our noses (or at least inside our houses) for inspiration.

On Friday, Hadid walked in the Vetements show during Paris Fashion Week wrapped tightly in a roll of yellow and red DHL-branded packing tape. The adhesive tool was styled into a strapless mini dress, while two heeled pumps were wrapped in the same tape to match. “She delivered,” read one social media comment. “FedEx has 24 hours to respond,” added another.

While it may be one of the most cost-effective pieces we’ve seen on a high fashion runway this season, the idea of using tape as a textile isn’t new. In 2017, Raf Simmons cinched the waists of models dressed in wool overcoats with a custom printed tape that read, “Walk with Me” and “RSYP Youth Project.” That same year Jeremy Scott, who was inspired by garbage for his Moschino collection, presented gowns with taped straps and detailing. In 2022, Kim Kardashian made headlines when she arrived at the Balenciaga show in Paris — almost every square inch of her covered in Balenciaga-branded yellow and black police tape. According to New York Times chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman, the outfit made a “sticky tape-y sound” as Kardashian walked.

Duct tape was originally created during World War II. It was invented by Vesta Stoudt, an American mother and munitions factory worker, who saw a better way to package soldiers’ ammunition boxes, but it quickly became a fix-all solution for everything from split boots to fender’s on jeeps to make-shift bandages. By the 2010s, the adhesive had become fashionable as well as functional: Now rolls were emblazoned with pictures of Hello Kitty, made to glow in the dark or scented. Constructing a duct tape dress was a favorite challenge on reality fashion competition Project Runway, while in 2010, for the award-winning “Telephone” music video featuring Beyoncé, Lady Gaga writhed around a prison cell with little more than a few yards of yellow caution tape in the way of an outfit.

In 2011, Iowa State University staged its first annual duct tape fashion show — covered by the New York Times — only permitting designs that were made entirely from the hardware store staple. The event was canceled in 2015 due to “minimal interest,” but passionate tape designers needn’t feel unstuck. With brands like Vetements and Balenciaga flying the flag for the unconventional material once more, perhaps the roll hasn’t run out just yet.

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