Four students at the University of Hefei, in eastern China, recently proved that you don’t have to spend a small fortune on a designer dress to look amazing. You can make it yourself, for free, using only plant leaves. Photos of the amazing leaf dress have been doing the rounds on Chinese social media for about a week, and people still can’t stop praising them.
The team behind the unique dress — two girls and two boys — got the idea for it over six months ago, while trying to come up with an interesting project for the annual “Animal and Plant Specimen Contest” at the University of Hefei. During that time, the girls couldn’t stop talking about how gorgeous the dress worn by Chinese actress at the Cannes Festival looked, and one of them suggested they try to recreate it out of plant leaves. They ran the idea by their teacher, and even though he considered it difficult to pull off, they went with it anyway.
After researching the best way to use plant leaves as fabric (织物), and coming up with a design for their dress, the four students started collecting the leaves. Some species were readily available on campus, but others were not, so they had to travel to Tianzhu Mountain to collect them.
To ensure that the collected leaves didn’t rot, the students removed the flesh (叶肉) by boiling them in specially prepared mixtures for about two hours. This made the flesh easier peeled away, leaving only the “skeleton” of the leaf.
This was much harder than it sounds, as the four students struggled to get the proper amount of the mixtures and the boiling time just right, to ensure that the flesh could be easily removed without damaging the skeleton of the leaf. Through trial and error, and with their teacher’s guidance they were able to come up with a perfect formula (配方).
The four science and biotechnology students could only work on their special dress after classes and on weekends, so it took them nearly four months to complete. That’s a pretty long time, but it all paid off when one of the girls got to finally put on the leaf dress and show it off to everyone. They posted photos of it, at various stages, online, and it became popular almost instantly.
24. What can be inferred from the first paragraph about the leaf dress?
A.It was highly spoken of. | B.It was sold at a high price. |
C.It was comfortable to wear. | D.It was finished in seven days. |
25. Where did the four students get their inspiration?
A.From the teacher. | B.From a dress at the Cannes Festival. |
C.From people online. | D.From “Animal and Plant Specimen Contest”. |
26. How was the process of making the dress?
A.Hard but rewarding. | B.Complex and painful. |
C.Smooth and successful. | D.Easy but time-consuming. |
27. Which of the following is a suitable title for the text?
A.What can dresses be made of? |
B.A perfect formula for dresses |
C.A dress made of leaves got popular |
D.Four university students’ road to success |