What would you make with over 1500 Netflix DVD envelopes? Joanna Wilson of Akron, Ohio dreamed of making a dress and, as part of their 20th anniversary, the company made that happen.
Since 2005, Wilson has been saving the red water-resistant envelopes because she was "originally intrigued" by their "unique texture," according to Netflix's DVD.com. By this spring, some 13 years later, she had amassed over 1556 of them. Well, Netflix celebrated their 20th anniversary this year and she shared her collection by using their #DVD20 hashtag on Instagram.
The company was impressed and immediately contacted her to learn more. She told them she was hoping to turn her collection into a dress and they jumped on the chance to sponsor its creation. So, Joanna started looking for a dress designer and found 19-year-old Alyssa Hertz, a Kent State University fashion design student who had already created dresses out of newspaper and styrofoam.
To come up the inspiration for the dress, Joanna (who is a historian of Christmas entertainment) looked to Rosemary Clooney's long red gown in the 1954 movie White Christmas.
Alyssa told DVD.com:
Read the restWe had a meeting to discuss how we could take inspiration from this famous gown and decided on replacing the fur on the dress with white roses made from envelopes that I painted white, making slight changes to the neckline and sleeves, and adding a dramatic train to finish off this grand dress. We had two fittings while I worked on the project, and a final fitting after it was complete, which I couldn't have been happier with.
