Brocade or chiffon dresses covered in who-knows-what utterances in beautiful Chinese and Arabic script, or dresses wittily made of paper printed with the New York Yellow Pages, all express a joyful relish in the decay of the written word, a forthright pleasure in the way its meaning has been draining away.
Dresses made with pages from phone books, or with words of other languages printed on the fabric, have shown the newfound lack of respect for the written word.