Celestial Seasonings Tea commissioned Brett Cooper (he helped design the costumes for Priscilla: Queen of the Desert) to make a red teabag dress to "heighten awareness" of heart disease in women, and to get publicity for their largish donation ($100,000) to WomenHeart, a women's heart disease patients advocacy group. And not-so-incidentally, did you hear that drinking just TWO CUPS of black tea a day can lessen your risk of heart disease? What a coincidence!
I am all in favor of devoting time, money, and effort to fighting heart disease, considering it killed my grandmother and has a better-than-even chance of getting me, too (although considering the number of times I've joked about getting hit by a bus, any higher power with a sense of humor would take me out with the 49 Western).
It's a good thing this dress is for a good cause, though, because Cat Chow this man is not. In fact, it's godawful, and the woman looks as if she's mere seconds away from ripping that comically shrunken New Year's Eve party hat right off and cramming it in the designer's pie-hole. And then going out for a good cup of coffee, prophylactic antioxidants be damned.
Click on the image to see more about this dress than you ever needed to know, including a movie, closeups of the dress, and pictures of the (also teabaggy) shoes. (Don't tell The Manolo about the shoes, though. He might have the vapors and have to be revived with the salts of the smelling.)
This is the first time I've been sent a press release as a "Fashion Blogger," (ha!) and I have to say I'm flattered, nay, honored, to now be part of the Publicity Industrial Complex (as someone I used to know once put it). I can't imagine I'll get many more of them, though — how many publicists could be pushing something suitable for the rarefied topic matter of A Dress A Day?
Executive Summary: Heart Disease: boo! Tea: yay! Dress: eh! Press releases: no comment!
A Dress A Day 
Actually, the shoes are probably the BEST part of the outfit!
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This post was really well-written. It made me smile to myself more than once.
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Thank you!
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The real reason this whole thing is marketing genius? My first thought was, “Celestial Seasonings makes black tea? Huh.”
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Is this a literal teabag-dress? ‘Cause if it is…PAPER CUTS! (*Youch!*)
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I think you could make a much prettier, floatier dress out of the tea bags themselves. Of course then Celestial Seasoning Brand wouldn’t be all over the place.
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Oooh! And think of how lovely you’d smell as you wafted by! But you’re right: no brand placement potential. And if you left all of the tags on you’d look like Minnie Pearl Gone Wild.
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Oh My! Well, it achieved its intent if the intent was to make a statement, that is for sure 🙂 I definitely won’t forget this dress anytime soon. but wonder if down the road I will remember the cause it was connected with. I keep looking at it and wonder why they picked the hat over a paper hair flower, though…or went picture hat.
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I think that we must come to terms with the fact that this whole outfit is one big “WHY?”
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When Priscilla won the Academy Award for costume (or, were they just nominated
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Cont. (sorry ’bout that)They won. His co-designer wore a dress made of credit cards. I think she looked great! Not sure what shoes she was wearing…http://www.smh.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1047583697904_2003/03/14/lizziegardiner.jpg– desertwind
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I remember the credit-card dress well! It was actually very cool and very beautiful. I’m such an unabashed comfort freak, though, that the thought of wearing sweaty, sticky, scratchy credit cards for anything more than a casual 10-minute try-on sends me into seizures…
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I actually liked the shoes, though they’re pointy.
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Keep up the great work. It very impressive. Enjoyed the visit!
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