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 .