Gary Cass, an Australian scientist, grew the "cave woman" design dress from cellulose woven by bacteria in a vat of fermenting wine.

The "cave woman" design dress must be kept wet because the cellulose fibers are not long enough to be flexible and, as it dries, they become brittle and break.

In order to shape the dress, slimy cellulose is scooped off the surface of the fermenting wine and layered around a blow-up doll. It then shrinks, taking the form of the body. The doll is deflated when the dress is in the right shape.

"This is art; it is not meant to be practical," inventor Gary Cass told Reuters on Wednesday.

"It is meant to be a provocative object, to spark debate about future fashion," said Cass, a scientific technician at the University of Western Australia in Perth.