When GSFA student Ardith Lanstra made her wedding gown, she didn't use silk and satin. Instead, she opted for less-traditional materials--namely magazines and tape.

Ms. Lanstra fashioned the dress for her Theory of Culture class. "Our assignment for the semester has three parts," she explained. "The first was to choose an object and write an ethnography about it examining the connections between nature and culture. For example, we use the word 'leather' to mitigate between the natural concept of dead-animal skin and the cultural concept of fashionable material for clothing."

Ms. Lanstra, who will marry next year, decided that a wedding dress would be an appropriate object. "My ethnography explored the materials that wedding dresses are typically made from, what influences wedding-dress design, and what the dress means in our culture," she said.

The second part of the course required students to examine one part of the ethnography more closely, then design an "intervention" based on that investigation, according to Ms. Lanstra. Some students did experiments and performance pieces. Others created three-dimensional pieces. Ms. Lanstra, who was part of the latter group, chose to examine the way the wedding-dress market works.

"My dress was made from wedding-dress images cut out of four bridal magazines and held together with seven rolls of Scotch tape," she said. "I was attempting to demonstrate how the market controls the image of what American women perceive wedding dresses to be. For the most part, what women believe is traditional about the appearance of wedding dresses has been made by the industry based on the flimsiest of historical facts."

As the final part of the assignment, students will document the object and the intervention in an artist's book.