A Russian cook with a taste for fashion creates clothing from garden
vegetables.

Olga Prokofieva is using carrots, cucumber and radishes to dish up her own
range of environmentally friendly and extremely tasty designer gear in the
Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

By day Olga Prokofieva is a cook at Russia's Yekaterinburg plastic surgery
clinic.

Off duty she's turning her knowledge of garden vegetables into an amazing
range of edible designer wear.

Her creations in carrot, cucumber, beans and radish are turning heads and
tickling taste buds.

She says it's a way of combining her cooking career of 20 years with a
life-long dream to be a fashion designer.

Olga Prokofieva saying :
"This is the way I present Russian folk motifs. This is a girl in
a Russian folk outfit. That is a light summer dress with a wonderful matching
bag. The bag can be used every day. It's beautiful although actually the
beans can be cooked too."

Olga's 'greengroculent' goodies take a long time to cook up.

The recipe for a dress involves more than six kilos of finely sliced
carrots carefully woven together in a process that takes her about ten
hours.

A carrot wig is equally painstaking.

SOUNDBITE: Yulia Pati, model, saying (Russian):
"I don't feel that it's heavy. On the contrary the smell of carrot
is so rich and fresh."

This impromptu fashion show at the clinic where Olga works has given
spectators an appetite for more.

SOUNDBITE: Oleg Vdovichenko, spectator, saying (Russian):
"It's fantastic that a cook can create such things. She does it so
delicately and carefully. I was stunned when I saw it."

Given the current trend to go green maybe in time Olga's fashion wear will
catch on and we'll all be eating our outfits for lunch.

And there would be another bonus - no more laundry, no more ironing,

Paul Chapman, Reuters