• What is the deal with Jughead's hat? – This is something the Internet is truly great at: as an archive for the exploration and explanation of the obscure aspects of the familiar. What will future anthropologists make of the Internet of our generation?
• Karachi, Pakistan manufacturing firm produces corsets and fetish wear (for export) – The brothers said Pakistan’s “stone-age production” worked to their advantage. The country, they said, lacks visionary product development. “Everyone’s still making the same products,” Adnan said.

  Then, they discovered a kind of straitjacket online. At first, they thought it was used for psychiatric patients, but it quickly led them to learn about the lucrative fetish industry.

  Today, they sell their products to online and brick-and-mortar shops, and to individuals via eBay. Their market research, they said, showed that 70 percent of their customers were middle- to upper-class Americans, and a majority of them Democrats. The Netherlands and Germany account for the bulk of their European sales.

  “We really believe that if you are persistent and hard working, there is an opportunity, in any harsh environment, even in an economically depressed environment like Pakistan,” Rizwan said.

• Average frustrated chump – for what's a subculture without its jargon? – Often abbreviated "AFC," is seduction community jargon for a heterosexual male who is unsuccessful at finding sexual or romantic relationships with women] This person seeks attraction and longingly desires intimacy, but only finds cordial friendship and platonic love with women. The term AFC is pejorative, and is attributed to NLP teacher Ross Jeffries.
• Seduction? Yeah we've got a group for that – The "seduction community" refers to a loose-knit subculture of men who strive for better sexual and romantic success with women through self-improvement and a greater understanding of social psychology. It exists largely through Internet forums and groups, as well as over a hundred local clubs, called "lairs" Supporters refer to the subculture simply as 'the community" and often call themselves "pickup artists." Origins date back to Eric Weber's 1970 book How to Pick Up Girls.

• Gypsy Moon: Romantic Vintage Inspired Clothing – Rock and Roll Gypsy Collection – No mention of Ms. Nicks name, but the NYT suggests this is another place to shop for the Stevie look
• Stevie Nicks Official Store | Apparel – Boring
• Stevie Nicks Style & where to buy it – if you want to put together a great Stevie costume for a concert or two … or if you just like dressing in rock and roll gypsy style… you don't have to spend a mint on custom made clothes. Online stores to the rescue! I'm in the process of collecting links to romantic gypsy inspired dresses, skirts, shawls, tops, boots and jewelry I've found surfing the web. Maybe one of them will help you put together your perfect Stevie Nicks loo
• Designs by Bear – The Stevie Nicks Look – To achieve the Bella Donna look, choose either my Rhiannon top in sheer white chiffon (worn over a body suit) and my Rhiannon skirt in white chiffon, or the 1-piece Rhiannon wrap dress in sheer chiffon.
• Stevie Nicks Style – Listing of where to buy clothing like Steve Nicks
• The Enchanted Mirror Home Page – We have our wonderful customers to thank for making us the #1 Stevie Nicks Clothing Store in the World!

In one part of the world, Muslim hardliners in Kuwait’s parliament

walked out of the body’s inaugural meeting on Sunday to protest two female Cabinet ministers who were not wearing headscarves.

While here in the US, Dunkin’ Donuts yanks Rachael Ray ad

in which the domestic diva wears a scarf that looks like a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men.

Context is everything, isn’t it? Women can piss people off if they don’t use the necessary clothing to display their membership in a group, or if they improperly use clothing that might inadvertently suggest membership in another group.

Careful, ladies. The “what to wear” dilemma just got much heavier!

The other day I was looking for a blender and happened across the “Bowie Collection” at Target.

It’s interesting to see how designer Keenan Duffty has synthesized his interpretation of Bowie’s look-described on the Target page as “edgy and sophisticated”-into a few broad strokes. The hat, the vest, the sashed coat.

Here’s David talking with Dick Cavett in 1974 about a variety of topics, including his clothing. During the interview, Cavett asks Bowie whether he can picture himself at 60. In a manner of speaking, Bowie has let Target and Duffty do the picturing for him. Gee my life’s a funny thing.

watch video

Parody just seems harder when real life is so ridiculous.

The 77-year-old widow of deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos is still viewed as an icon of class and grace as well as a mindless shoe maven who amassed thousands of pairs of pumps and stilettos while her nation languished in poverty.

But there is a lesser-known side of the flamboyant fashion plate: as a high-couture scavenger who spent nights fashioning outfits with a glue gun and scissors, even stripping the copper wire from telephone lines to get just the right look.

The Marcoses are now poised to capitalize on that fashion-meets-function image. Next month, Imee Marcos, the daughter of Ferdinand and Imelda, and her two sons will introduce the Imelda Collection: a funky, streetwise line of jewelry, clothing and shoes. They hope the fashion line will attract a younger generation not yet born when Imelda Marcos was on the world stage.

Norm Thompson is an online clothing catalog, where many of the images belie their naively breathless copy.

Fit Technologies designed a clothing sizing system that radically reduces complexity and confusion and helps guide shoppers to a product that will really fit their body type. But a better solution for consumers isn’t necessarily a better solution for retailers or manufacturers, and even though they are giving it a shot, it seems likely to fail.

Retailers that commit to it must find space for more merchandise, train workers to understand the new sizes and explain the new system to customers – a struggle for stores that already have few employees on the sales floor.

Then there is the reality, however counter-intuitive it may be, that retailers and clothing makers thrive off sizing confusion. Consumers who find a brand that fits are likely to stick with it and a standard sizing system would encourage them to visit other stores.

Chickens Suit is a conceptual art piece cum product that is as confusing as it is provocative

In the future, The ChickensSuit will outfit the old, familiar house chicken, and future clothes will naturally be offered in different sizes and available in the color combinations red-white, in each case the piece being inspired by the flags of the two countries, Japan and Austria, including one warm corduroy outfit, as well as two disguise versions: in camouflage or as hair fur.

Also see previous entry about tattoos on pigs.

Ben Stein writes in the NYT about fashion. Or culture. Or something. It’s a strange rant; reminds me of the outrage over shaggy Beatles-esque long haircuts in the 60s from stuffed-shirt establishment types who were frightened of the world changing without them and so frothed and stormed in disgust. Ben Stein is old, out of touch, and really really shallow.

TODAY’S business workplace is not a pretty sight. No, I’m not referring to wildly overinflated C.E.O. pay, although I could be. Nor am I referring to the empty desks caused by outsourcing, although I could be referring to that, too. I am not even referring to modern cubicles and their pitiful fiberboard walls. I am referring to the men (not the women) in those cubicles.

To put it as boldly as it needs to be put, men at work these days all too often dress like total slobs, and it hurts the eyes, the spirit and, I suspect, the bottom line.

Sometimes, I get a clue of this when I go to see my lawyer and am shocked to find that men who should be wearing suits – to keep up their propriety and their sense of dignity – are wearing casual jeans and short-sleeved shirts instead. I get a whiff of it when I appear on television and see employees of major networks dressed in casual slacks and sport shirts with no ties.

But the most stunning blow came a few weeks ago when I did an industrial film on a super-advanced videoconferencing system made by a very large, very successful high-tech company. The men who worked at the company’s campus in Oregon were uniformly smart and uniformly courteous, but they dressed like children at summer camp – cut-off jeans, shorts, T-shirts and sandals without socks. I asked if this was some special dress-down day and they all looked at me as if I were insane. “No,” they said. “This is how we dress.”

I see it in airports and on airplanes. I see it when young people come to me for interviews for a summer job dressed in baggies – gangsta-style long shorts with some of their butts showing – and have no idea that they are doing anything wrong.

I see it even at some brokerage firms, although one of the saving graces of investment banks is that the men who work at them do dress like grown-ups, and even dress beautifully in many cases.

…
When a man wears a nice suit of clothes, he feels like a grown-up. He is dressed like Gregory Peck or Clark Gable or Gary Cooper, so, naturally he’ll want to behave like a grown-up.
…

Besides, men at work in casual clothes simply lack authority. We clients really do not trust a man wearing J. Crew casual wear as much as we trust a man wearing a suit from J. Press or the venerable and much-adored Brooks Brothers.
…

In addition, if everyone is dressed for a game of dodgeball instead of a game of “let’s draw up a will,” how will we tell the bosses from the associates? How will we possibly feel as much confidence in a man who picks an exchange-traded fund if he appears at lunch in shorts instead of a suit?

A suit says discipline, maturity, style, respect for yourself and respect for the people you are meeting. Casual clothes say – well, the word “contempt” comes to mind, although maybe it’s too harsh. Maybe just “too cool for school” is what I mean.

…

There is a lesson here. Men look better if they dress for work in a uniform of a suit and a shirt and tie. They feel better about themselves, if I can judge from the moods of those marines at the hospital and at the reunion. Certainly, as a citizen, I felt better about the marines being dressed as if they honored their country and their mission. I can certainly recall that when I worked in a law firm and on Wall Street, I felt a lot better about myself and took myself and my work a lot more seriously when I dressed up like a mensch.

Maybe this is old-fashioned, but there is a lot of good sense in those old fashions.

Camelon, touted as CLOTHING OF THE FUTURE – IN THE PRESENT is a multi-purpose garment that comes from the Renaissance Faire/SCA community. An interesting piece of clothing design, through pulling some drawstrings etc. you can convert into four different dresses, two skirts, pants, shirts, shorts, capes, a poncho, a tunic, a handbag, a hauling bag, sleeping bag, or a pillow. Aesthetically, I thought the future stopped looking like the past around the time of 2112, but perhaps that’s just me.

Also, be sure to check out the Cameleon aka Bill’s Pants video on this page.

Thanks, Connie!