It's really an all-American product

It was nearly midnight on a recent Friday when Keith Urig finally called it quits, though he and his friends weren't quite finished with their life-size model of the time-traveling DeLorean from "Back to the Future."The pulley system he had rigged up to lift the famous vertically opening gullwing doors was still jerky, and the fog machine was only pushing vapors out of one exhaust port."We've been working on the float for three weeks now," said Mr. Urig, a 40-year-old owner of a small excavating.pany. "Your fingers definitely get tired from ripping up tape."That is because the faux DeLorean automobile that Mr. Urig helped build for this town's annual parade—along with a 12-foot-tall clock tower also from a scene in the film—was made mostly of duct tape.

In recent years, the tough adhesive, originally designed to waterproof munitions boxes during World War II, has been transformed from a trusty household repair tool to a geeky status symbol. Devotees craft everything from prom dresses to runway fashions to boutique items like wallets, purses and jewelry.Here in Avon, a town of almost 22,000 outside Cleveland that bills itself as "The Duct Tape Capital of the World," things go a bit further, with an annual three-day celebration of the stuff. At this year's 10th annual Avon Heritage Duct Tape Festival, there was a duct tape fashion show and duct tape sculptures of everything from giant Buddy Holly eyeglasses to a towering silver duct system. Thousands of visitors strutted their stuff in sticky homemade creations. The highlight was a parade with 19 floats vying for top prize.

"It's really an all-American product," said Bill Kahl, executive vice president of marketing at ShurTech Brands, the locally based maker of Duck Brand duct tape and one of the largest employers in town. "Kind of like bluejeans."ShurTech, whose Duck Tape Facebook FB +1.25% page has 5.3 million fans, provided each parade participant with 60 rolls—or roughly 600 yards—of tape to fashion floats for the festival.For Mr. Urig, that wasn't nearly enough. "We had to scrounge every store in town," he said. "I called my sister who lives a half-hour west of here. She picked up 20 more rolls for us."