Lia Griffith - Paper Couture

Lia Griffith is a graphic designer and fashion designer. Long fascinated by clothing (as a child she loved dressing handmade paper dolls), Lia has been a costumer for plays and once designed a line of children's clothing that sold to Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus. Peace (1000 folded paper cranes!)

While working on a project for Xerox, a paper dress was proposed to show off a new printer's vivid color capability. Lia went on to create seven stunning dresses that featured paintings by her collaborator, artist Sean Moran. She explains that the Venus collection was a nod to her studies of feminine archetypes and each dress was named after one of the chakra energies. Abundance

Lia and Sean worked together to compose a pattern of artwork, photos, text, and quotes, all of which were transferred to sheets of 11 x 17 inch white paper. She then transformed the color copies into high fashion by cutting, folding, hot gluing, and sewing.Passion

Lia's next big collection will debut this fall. It's inspired by two of her favorite things... things that fly and things that bloom.Freedom

Visit Lia's website, Paper Couture, for more information about each of the incredible dress sculptures. And you can see them in motion on the runway at The Art Institute of Portland via a short video. I found it fascinating to hear how Lia approaches the construction of a new design and to see the way she works with the stiff paper to give it the illusion of flowing fabric.

Photography by Manny Minjarez