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It's funny. Laugh. Science

Dresses Made from Wine 119

Posted by samzenpus from the julianne-whiskey-pants dept.
Horar writes "Australian researchers have combined art and science to make dresses from fermented fabric, using bacteria to 'grow' slimy dresses from wine and beer."
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Dresses Made from Wine More

Dresses Made from Wine

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  • Slimy dresses? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Alchemist253 ( 992849 ) on Thursday March 15, 2007 @02:25AM (#18359033)
    Could this eventually bring new meaning to "wet t-shirt contest?"

  • Slashdot (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    News for girls. That that matters.

  • It Won't Go Anywhere (Score:5, Funny)

    by Elvis77 ( 633162 ) on Thursday March 15, 2007 @02:33AM (#18359059)
    This will never take off... we Aussies like to drink our wine and beer not waste it on irrelevant things like clothing
    • Well, there has been a wine glut [iol.co.za] in Australia over the last few years. For the sake of our livers we have to find more uses for it all. :)

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by StrahdVZ ( 1027852 )

        Well, there has been a wine glut in Australia over the last few years. For the sake of our livers we have to find more uses for it all. :)


        Other than send the cheap swill overseas and charge exorbitant prices for it, of course. We already do that...

        • Re:It Won't Go Anywhere (Score:5, Funny)

          by Plammox ( 717738 ) on Thursday March 15, 2007 @03:32AM (#18359293)
          Well, you're effectively killing off French wine here in Europe, with all that Australian, Chilean, South African and (gasp!) American red wines you export to us. I read that Chile alone has experienced a 700% growth in wine exports to europe over the last few years

          Not that I mind, we never buy the French stuff anyway, as we think it's just overpriced French farmer morning wee.

          So let me just give some thanks to the aussies/chlieans/boers/yanks that you're getting the complacent French out of their comfort zone.

          • Don't forget CA icewine. We're drowning our German competitors in cheaper and better quality on average wine.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by hey! ( 33014 )
            Actually Chile only sends its dregs overseas; or at least the reasonably priced vin ordinaire we see overseas is swill compared to the vin ordinaire you can get there for the equivalent of less than 10 US dollars.

            • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

              by hypnotik ( 11190 )
              Interstingly enough, the people here (yes, I live in Chile) say they send all the good wine overseas and the dregs are used on local markets.

              You are correct in that very good wine is available fairly cheaply here. Casillero del Diablo is good and reasonably priced. Cusiño Macul is another favorite of mine, especially the Don Luis Chardonnay. I have others that I like, but I'm too tired to remember their names right now..
          • Oh, man, though. Two words: Argen tina. Some of the best red you'll ever have. Malbec. $6 a bottle. OMFG is it good with a nicely done steak.
        • Actually, you send the good stuff too. Australian wine has become very good, and frequently ends up being much better than a lot of the wine coming out of California, for a LOT less. I just say Kudos, and keep it up :-)

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by StrahdVZ ( 1027852 )

            Actually, you send the good stuff too. Australian wine has become very good, and frequently ends up being much better than a lot of the wine coming out of California, for a LOT less. I just say Kudos, and keep it up :-)

            Although it pains me to think that 1 good bottle exported is 1 less bottle to drink ;), its good to see that the good stuff makes it overseas. It gets me a bit riled up to see bottles you could buy here for A$8 sold overseas for £30 or US$45. That kind of mass marketing of cheap swill threatens to drag down Aussie wine's reputation.

            Thus the earlier cynicism...

            • Yep. when I arrived at a Norwegian airport it seemed the majority of passengers bought either cigarettes or alcohol duty free. I was puzzled to find that the only Aussie wine was Lindemans which is one of the less inspiring reds at home. I realise now that everything is relatively dear in Norway but why not sell the good stuff?

              Then again, the Spanish wine they mass import into Australia is rather lame for the price (compared to your average bottle from La Rioja), so it works both ways!

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Deagol ( 323173 )
              "This is not a wine for drinking -- it is a wine for laying down, and avoiding."
          • Good is a relative thing. There isn't much bad wine in Australia.

            Case in point: a Duck Creek Estate wine was at one point sold for under $10 in Australia while it was worth over $200 in America. This is from the same batch of wine.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by sjwaste ( 780063 )
              So do you buy our Gallo wines for $200, when they're $10 here in the US? :)

              Seriously, its no secret, we in America will overpay for anything, ESPECIALLY things we know little about but have high price tags. It's $200? It MUST be good.

              I've been buying a lot of "cheap" Australian and Chilean wines here in the US recently, though, in the $10/bottle range. Why? Because the equivalent $10 in a California, French, or Italian wine will be pretty awful unless you really know what you're doing and spot a b

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by smchris ( 464899 )
          Other than send the cheap swill overseas and charge exorbitant prices for it,

          So that's why your stuff always gives me a hangover! (Weirdest thing. Wish I _were_ kidding.)

          A lot of South African agrees with me. Even there someone from one of their consulates told me in her opinion it suffers passing over the equator in shipping containers and is distinctly better in-country. Perhaps the same with Australia.
      • Not this year. With the drought and restrictions on irrigation there's been an under-supply of grapes.
    • Just think of the lucky buggers working on this who get access to wine and beer for work purposes!

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This will never take off... we Aussies like to drink our wine and beer not waste it on irrelevant things like clothing

      TFA is incomplete -- they say the dresses are formed on "DEflatable dolls" (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). However, they fail to say whether the dresses therefore assume the corresponding cavities which the dolls are equipped with.

      In any case, if they're formed on such dolls, I'd be very suspicious of whether all the "slime" came from bacterial fermentation.

  • hmmm (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    'free' as in clothing?

  • Dear Slashdot editors (Score:5, Funny)

    by Capt'n Hector ( 650760 ) on Thursday March 15, 2007 @02:37AM (#18359081)
    Dear Slashdot editors, please refrain from posting further stories with SCARY, zombie-like accompanying pictures. Especially at 3:30 AM, EST. Because now I can't sleep. Thank you.

  • *burp* (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GFree ( 853379 ) on Thursday March 15, 2007 @02:38AM (#18359085)
    I must be drunk myself. I immediately thought the title was referring to Wine the software instead of the beverage.

    "These fashionable dresses are sure to impress, as they are made from a compatibility layer released under the GNU Lesser General Public License."

  • Go Australia !!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by The Sith Lord ( 111494 ) on Thursday March 15, 2007 @02:39AM (#18359093)
    How Australian to make clothes out of booze :)
  • I know of easier ways to make your clothes smell like alcohol, ways that actually allow for consumption (although not digestion).

  • Prom (Score:3, Funny)

    by cyberbob2351 ( 1075435 ) on Thursday March 15, 2007 @02:41AM (#18359109) Homepage
    Will this make it easier for overly horny high school males to get their prom dates drunk?

    *ducks*
  • they could get a woman to model the thing instead of some scary looking goth dude....
    • they could get a woman to model the thing instead of some scary looking goth dude....

      "The model is also made up to look like a cavewoman and is supposed to be emerging from a primordial swamp, says Cass." -tfa


      They were clearly going for the cavewoman look, but they did end up going for the crazy street lady who wears nothing but a trash bag.

      • They were clearly going for the cavewoman look

        Just a thought, but where does a cavewoman get all that white foundation?

        • Well, obviously it's a zombie cavewoman dude from the deep. Duh!
        • Just a thought, but where does a cavewoman get all that white foundation?

          Ummm.... chalk? What else would the Neolithic Gothic Revolution use to compliment their slimy garbage bags?

  • How ironic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Legion303 ( 97901 ) on Thursday March 15, 2007 @02:45AM (#18359119) Homepage
    Wine is usually used to make dresses disappear.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ady1 ( 873490 )
      After looking at the article (and essentially the accompanying picture), I'm thinking that this one is designed to make everyone disappear (screaming and running).

  • beaten to the punch (Score:4, Funny)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Thursday March 15, 2007 @02:54AM (#18359151) Homepage
    Australian researchers have combined art and science to make dresses from fermented fabric, using bacteria to 'grow' slimy dresses

    Bah. EECS students have been using the "floor pile" method to grow similar clothing for years.

  • Wet.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Leto-II ( 1509 ) on Thursday March 15, 2007 @03:10AM (#18359195)

    must be kept wet


    I'm all for any clothing technology that requires dresses to be wet or else they fall apart. Either way, we win!
    • Did you see the model [abc.net.au] in the story's photo?

      This is most definitely not a win-win.

      I, for one, fear our wine-dress wearing, water-emerging, zombie-lookin' overlords.
      • Even with a less horrifying model we're still left with the reality of a woman covered in rancid scum. Not my bag, though perhaps the "anything with an orifice" crowd wouldn't object.

  • Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)

    by professorfalcon ( 713985 ) on Thursday March 15, 2007 @03:13AM (#18359201)
    Next up... real beer goggles.
  • Shut up, just shut up. You had me at "Merlot"
  • Damn, I thought the Windows compatibility layer "wine" (wine is not an emulator) had finally gotten a skin-system...
  • From TFA: "As long as we have alcohol, these bacteria will do their job."

    Clearly, these bacteria work in my office.
    • Hich..... What are you talking about I'm not... hich... drunk. I'm just....drunk.

      ~Joe Bacteria, cube 4601A.
  • gives new meaning to the idea of edible undergarments

  • alcohol==work (Score:5, Funny)

    by cerberusss ( 660701 ) on Thursday March 15, 2007 @04:16AM (#18359477) Journal
    FTFA:

    "As long as we have alcohol, these bacteria will do their job,"
    In my experience, this prerequisite also goes for software engineers.
  • That the fabric gets stronger when wet is an interresting quality. Usually viscosis based products, nomatter how comfortable they may be to wear in the sun, totally disintegrates in heavy showers (yeah, been there ...)

    So a combination of this with some oldfashioned 19th century tech might eventually lead to a useful product.
    • Cellulose is pretty interesting substance. I've been brewing over the last few months and found the same thing, had the same idea. When my brew was exposed to air thick slimy circles grew on top. At first I expected them to be like gelatin, easily torn and smushed, but they proved remarkably strong. A sharp knife was even hardly useful. Very strange. Anyone who wants to try, get some yeast and boil up some super-saturated sugar water. Wait until the sugar water cools to room temperature(even a little

  • Forgive Me, but (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Zekasu ( 1059298 )
    FTA:

    And to get the shape of a dress, they lifted the layers of slimy cellulose off and laid them over a deflatable doll.

    and, also FTA:

    Cass is a laboratory technician at the university who, among other things, writes science fiction.

    Please forgive me (again), but at 3AM, there are quite a lot of subliminal messages in this article. Of course, I suppose the writer had to have a little humor.

    Or a dress to drink.

    All humor aside, and some actual logic, you probably couldn't become intoxicated (or at the most, even near intoxicated) from ingesting this dress. In fact, being made mostly of cellulose, it would probably be considred more as a fiber dress, more than anything.

    That being said, I guess I'll have to

  • By the time you're drunk the dress is already off, awesome time saver!
  • But wait...wine is a liquid...you can't wear liquids! This man is obviously a witch of some kind! And that scary picture is not helping his case...(plus he turned me into a newt...no I haven't got better).
    Furthermore, his sheets are much whiter than mine, and he's using an ouiji board to produce these dresses...ouiji boards obviously being some multi-thousand year old old-world device to contact the dead (because, like it or not, the ultimate tool of communication between this world and the next is not

  • inflatable dolls? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hulleye ( 126367 ) on Thursday March 15, 2007 @04:33AM (#18359551) Homepage
    Must have been great to see the reaction of whoever was checking the bill on this experiment

    1. 100 bottles of red wine: $2,000
    2. Inflatable doll: $50
    3. Models for zombie cavewoman photo shoot: $500
    4. Look on UWA accountant's face: Priceless
    • Just a small question regarding wine from an European. Is wine that expensive in the US ? It seems to me that besides not being legally accessible to 21- ers, it is bloody expensive.

      So how much costs a drinkable bottle (4-5 here)? How much for a good bottle (12-17)? how much for one at a restaurant (20-50) ? I am not talking about "1985 was a fantastic year" here, just recent years wines.
      • The prices you give aren't that different from U.S. prices. Although not the norm, there are drinkable wines for as little as $2 (Two-buck Chuck [wikipedia.org]). I often buy $6 wines, often imports from e.g. Chile. For what you call a "good" bottle, I think it depends how much of a connossieur you are. There's good wine in the 12-17 range, there's also questionable stuff, particularly the really high-volume mass-market stuff. If you're unfamiliar with the choices and want to use money to insulate yourself against buy
  • No more paying to have wine stains taken out of your wife's clothing!

    (er, wait... insert standard /. joke about girlfriends and wives)

  • Wine dress... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Sutaren ( 1076051 ) on Thursday March 15, 2007 @05:03AM (#18359691)
    ... how about a cocktail dress?

  • The real question.... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Can they do this with hot grits?
  • if it were the reverse: "Wine Made from Dresses!

    /especially Monica Lewinsky's dress!

  • Not only do geeks have to make a will save against this cave woman creature, but now they'll have to make a fort save from the alcoholic aura this thing radiates. No matter what happens with the fort save, I know the will save will get larger penalties as geeks stay around this creature too long from the intoxicating aura of her cloths.
  • R-Kelly is expected to be back in court for urinating on a young female.
    It is believed that he will be using the Fermented Clothing defence.
  • From TFA:

    And to get the shape of a dress, they lifted the layers of slimy cellulose off and laid them over a deflatable doll.
    I'm sure that they used that doll only for dressmaking and other "scientific" purposes....
  • I've always found it interesting that you could make textiles from milk proteins. Specifically the casein protein.

    http://www.swicofil.com/products/212milk_fiber_cas ein.html [swicofil.com]

    http://www.cyarn.com/products/fiber/fiber_036.html [cyarn.com]
  • How's that cure for cancer coming guys?
  • Naturally, the first thing I thought of was the miracle performed by Our Lord And Saviour, Jesus Christ, when He turned water to wine. Ah, what a blessed event, and what a blessing He was upon us all!

    But just think if he'd done this trick, but in reverse - turning women's dresses into wine. Instantaneous result is a naked woman covered in delicious alcohol. I bet it'd be a big hit at parties. :)
  • So now someone is porting clothing to linux?
  • I thought the whole point of wine and beer was to get women OUT of their clothes, not into them.
  • WOW is that one butt ugly guy!

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