The 405 Aired Oct 9th, 2026

The Day Paper became Fashion, today O.K. zooms back to the 1966-1967 era.

What is The 405 Coffee Break with O.K. Solberg?

Greetings and Welcome to The 405 Coffee Break with O.K. Solberg

New episodes tend to air over the local KMMR radio station @ 5 minutes past 4PM each M-F. And have been doing so, nearly every week since Sept 2018.
New episodes appear here usually within a few hours after that KMMR air time and been striving to post new releases here by 4:30PM.

OK Solberg: 00:00

I want to again welcome you to The 405 Coffee Break. Guys, the weekend's getting near another beautiful day. Get you a cup of coffee, glass of iced tea, bottle of water. Let's see what's happening.

OK Solberg: 00:10

Spring wheat $6.30 a bushel, 550lb steer calf $4.30 to $4.35, on the top end. in Billings at PAYS and a 100lb fat lamb in Billings $3.05 to $3.15 a pound. But guys there's more much more.

OK Solberg: 00:31

So so my dear wife Thea said to me, hey. You did an episode about what happened in 1967. Sometime you should do an episode about the paper dress. Do you remember those guys? Oh, yes.

OK Solberg: 00:46

I do remember that craze. Dear Thea, in 1967 was over in California and her friend's sister told her all about a paper dress when it was happening. Let's look into that today and I'll call it The Day Paper became Fashion.

OK Solberg: 01:06

In 1966, the Scott Paper Company had an idea. It was one of those ideas that makes you wonder who said it 1st and why everyone else in the room didn't immediately tell him, hey, sit down.

OK Solberg: 01:22

Someone said, let's make a dress out of paper. Not a paper pattern. Not a dress with a paper design. A dress made from paper. Scott wasn't actually trying to replace the clothing industry.

OK Solberg: 01:41

The company was promoting a new paper based material called Dura Weave and the dress was supposed to be a novelty production. So Scott advertised a simple sleeveless dress.

OK Solberg: 01:55

Send in a coupon with a $1.25 and Scott would mail you a paper dress. It came in colorful printed designs including red paisley pattern and a black and white design. Scott probably expected people to laugh, order one, wear it for fun and forget about it.

OK Solberg: 02:17

Oh, they were wrong. They were dead wrong. The orders started pouring in within about 8 months roughly half a million paper dresses had been ordered. Suddenly paper wasn't just something you wrote on, it was something you wore.

OK Solberg: 02:36

And of course, you gotta know other companies noticed soon paper dresses were appearing in department stores all over the country. They came in bright colors, wild geometric patterns, and psychedelic designs perfect for the 1960s.

OK Solberg: 02:55

The idea wasn't completely ridiculous either. This wasn't ordinary notebook paper with sleeves. The material was a specially made paper based non woven design to be strong enough to wear.

OK Solberg: 03:10

But there was a catch, actually there were several. The dresses weren't intended to become heirlooms. They were inexpensive, they were temporary, and some came with warnings about what could happen if you got them wet or treated them like ordinary clothing, which brings us to the really interesting part.

OK Solberg: 03:31

The paper dress craze fit perfectly into a decade fascinated by convenience, novelty, and disposable products. Why spend a lot of money on something you're gonna wear for years when you could buy something cheap, wear it a few times, and throw it away. Fashion designers jumped on the idea.

OK Solberg: 03:54

Paper skirts appeared, paper jackets appeared, and paper clothing became a walking advertisement for everything from products to politics. Yes, sir. Richard Milhouse Nixon had one on a paper dress, an ad.

OK Solberg: 04:09

Then pop art got involved. One of the most famous examples was the Campbell soup super dress decorated with a familiar soup can imagery made famous by the pop art movement.

OK Solberg: 04:25

And for a few brief years, the future of fashion looked like it might be printed on a roll of paper, but just like a kid, fashion has a short attention span.

OK Solberg: 04:39

By the end of the 60's the paper clothing craze had largely faded away and here's the funny part, Those dresses were designed to be disposable. But guess what? Some people didn't throw them away. They saved them.

OK Solberg: 04:55

Today, museums preserve examples of those supposedly temporary garments. So the Scott Paper Company set out to make a cheap novelty dress. Half a million people said, I'll take one. And more than half a century later, we'll... We're still talking about them.

OK Solberg: 05:15

Turns out the paper dress wasn't built to last yet it lasted long enough to become history. And guys, I went online, checked it out on eBay. You can purchase a 1966 cot paper caper dress black op art style size small for $200 doll hairs. $200. 200 even.

OK Solberg: 05:41

And I found this other one and it was $370.75, not including shipping. I didn't buy one, but I wanted you to know they are available. Get them while they last.

OK Solberg: 05:55

Listen to Isaiah 40 verse 8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Isaiah 40:8. The flower fades and so did the paper dress from 1966.

OK Solberg: 06:16

So until next time, as you go out there, remember now, don't be bitter.