A "giant leap" for women's hair styles

More synchronicity. Hat tip goes to my wife for sending me a link to this site, along with the note "Thought you would appreciate the absurdity of this." Perhaps since my own "hairdo" makes my head look like a full moon. But apparently you ladies can harness the power of the moon to achieve beautiful hair.

There's nothing like tidal-wavy hair.

The WTF Hat

Here is a hat for the mentally challenged to purchase and wear. I'm sure it's overpriced. The person in the picture has an eyebrow piercing, so she's already down 40 or so IQ points.

A new white knit cap from designer Lauren McCarthy promises to give wearers a happy face - by poking them in the skull with a metal spike.

It has a bendable sensor that attaches to your cheek and measures your smile size. A hidden motor then jabs you in the head "inversely proportional to the degree of your smile," the hat's description proclaims.

"Through repeated use of this conditioning device you can train your brain to smile all the time," it says.

"It definitely works, and it actually does kind of hurt you. It doesn't draw blood, but it's pretty uncomfortable," McCarthy, 22, told the Daily News.

"It's a call to think about the ways we interact and how a simple smile will make you and other people feel better," she said.

What a stupid idea. And I'm sure it violates the Geneva Convention's stipulations about torture. At least Dick Cheney didn't make people smile. How about a hat that waterboards you whenever you swear at a homeless person?

"Homeless Chic"

This article was mentioned on the Medved show the other day, and had me cracking up. Here's an excerpt, best read with a slightly effete yet deadly serious intonation—think NPR news announcer:

Some of us prefer to think of fashion as a charcoal filter that indiscriminately sucks up whatever’s swirling around, rather than a big ear that listens to what’s going on in the culture. Sometimes ideas become clarified in fashion, and sometimes they get stuck as gunk.

How else to account for a spate of references in fashion to homeless chic? A 28-page pictorial in the September issue of W magazine, shot by the British photographer Craig McDean, repurposes shopping bags from labels like Chanel and Dior as makeshift dresses, and shows them worn with furs and pearls and designer bags.

The Russian model Sasha Pivovarova, listless but still ineffably glamorous, is seen slumping on a park bench or a mattress or a bed of Prada bags. Along with the hair and makeup people involved in the story, the stylist Alex White is credited at the end of the spread for having made the (cleverly constructed, it must be said) paper-bag clothes.

I smell a reality show, pun intended. Oh... yeah, I forgot the best line:

It was just that the man’s jeans-shorts-over-sweat-pants look, his pale blue boots, with matching socks, gloves and glasses, suggested that he had not lost his need to “communicate and express himself through style.”

Wow, that is so deep. Give the guy some white make-up, big floppy shoes and a old bowler hat and he's a ready-made circus clown. I'm guessing he already has a red nose.