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﻿Wisconsin clothing designers usually are overshadowed by New York or Paris. But during the mid-1960s, the Badger State inspired a nationwide fashion trend.

In spring 1966, Scott Paper Co. of Marinette and Oconto Falls accidentally started a pop culture phenomenon by introducing two paper dresses as premiums for its new line of conventional paper goods. For $1.29, customers could buy a dress made from paper and redeemable coupons to exchange for Scott’s more traditional products.

The dresses, branded as the “Paper Caper,” were made from a combination of paper-napkin stock and rayon that the company called Dura Weve. ﻿

Although intended only as a marketing device, the dresses caught on as legitimate products in themselves. When orders for a half-million poured in, Scott was overwhelmed. Six months after it began, company executives ended the advertising campaign stating that they “didn’t want to turn into dress manufacturers.”

Clothing companies had no such reservations. Most produced cheap, disposable dresses, but others sold full-length, hand-painted paper ball gowns valued at $1,000. Early in 1967, Look Magazine even published a fashion spread featuring high-end paper dresses in gold and silver studded with “gems.”