Elixir’s model sashayed down the runway in a flowing gown made entirely of coffee filters, with a cloud of white smoke streaming out of her bustle, for Afterlife: Paper, Purgatory and the Great Beyond, a recent AIGA competition whose theme was to create a dress made of used paper.

For the Elixir gown, we created an elegant gradient of earthy brown tones by using a mixture of variously stained used coffee filters. Holding dry ice inside the dress proved to be most difficult. To activate dry ice (and get that streaming white smoke effect) water must first be boiled. The challenge was to find a way to construct a secure enough vessel to hold dry ice without harming our model. Our solution? We water-proofed the bustle and used a water bottle belt with a series of small bottles around the waist to hold the ice.