A Boston-area police department issued a request to locals to remember to wear pants when picking up their mail, but the posting appears to have someone in particular in mind.
"You know who you are," Taneytown police wrote on Facebook. "This is your last warning."
Want to avoid being seen by person-recognizing camera systems? Wear a shirt printed with a complex, confusing image that looks like a mangled JPG of a crowd scene.
The bright adversarial pattern, which a human viewer can darn-near see from space, renders the wearer invisible to the software looking at him. ... Code does not "think" in terms of facial features, the way a human does, but it does look for and classify features in its own way. To foil it, the "cloaks" need to interfere with most or all of those priors. Simply obscuring some of them is not enough. Facial recognition systems used in China, for example, have been trained to identify people who are wearing medical masks while trying to prevent the spread of COVID-19 or other illnesses.
And of course, to make the task even more challenging, different object detection frameworks all use different mechanisms to detect people, Goldstein explained. "We have different cloaks that are designed for different kinds of detectors, and they transfer across detectors, and so a cloak designed for one detector might also work on another detector," he said.
See also Adversarial Fashion. Read the rest
This is the creation of avant-garde fashion designer Arnold Putra, claimed to be made with an ethically-sourced human child spine and alligator tongue leather. Unfortunately, it's been memory holed since Twitter found it. Fortunately, the memory holers always forget about the Bing Cache.
The ARNOLD PUTRA alligator tongue and human spine bag has been ethically sourced and crafted in a multiple panel construction. With an emphasis on protruding scar stitching lacing the outer construction of the bag, each wearer is encouraged to sculpt a form of his/her own sentiment. The unique silhouette is complimented by the human spine handle and raw edge finishes. Technical in design and construction, this one off bag is an ideal statement piece.
Each piece of Arnold Putra is meticulously hand crafted in their atelier upon order, limited in availability and may take up to 14 days to arrive during busy periods.
FEATURES: - Limited to 1/1 - Alligator tongue and human spine bag with a unique pattern construction - Natural finish - Protruding scar stitching finishes - Large main compartment - Raw edge finishes - Limited in availability
COMPOSITION: - Shell: 100% Alligator tongue- Shell: 100% Human spine handle
If you're thinking of DIYing it, it turns out that ethically-sourced human child spines are not on Amazon, sadly, so you might have to wait three or more days to get the materials together.
(throws horror writing career out of window)
I got nothing on this reality. https://t.co/7IE25yx0GR
— Cassandra Khaw (@casskhaw) March 24, 2020
Read the restI messaged them on WhatsApp...
French conglomerate LVMH -- owner of Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, and Christian Dior, and other luxury brands -- is converting its perfume production lines to crank out hand sanitizer. And no, they won't be selling high ticket hand sanitizer bottles in their boutiques.
"These gels will be delivered free of charge to the health authorities," the company announced. "LVMH will continue to honour this commitment for as long as necessary, in connection with the French health authorities."
(BBC)
In 1982, Jeff Spicoli brought checkerboard Vans beyond the SoCal surf-skate culture and onto the big screen in one of my all-time favorite films, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. (The story goes that Sean Penn had bought shortly before filming began and convinced director Amy Heckerling to let him wear them in the movie.) To celebrate the movie's release, Steve Van Doren, son of the Vans founder Paul Van Doren, made a limited run of special Fast Times slip-ons made to give away at the premiere. Those special pairs have become a holy grail of shoe collectors and now Vans has reissued them. Awesome. Totally awesome. From Vans:
Borrowing details from the original Classic Slip-On and offering modernized comfort with upgraded Ortholite® sockliners, Anaheim Factory Classic Slip-On 98 DX also includes throwback details like the iconic Vans checkerboard print, higher glossed foxing tape, printed sidewalls, and sturdy canvas and textile uppers to complete the look.
Designer Harikrishnan's inflatable latex trousers suggest "anatomically impossible" proportions. They're so weird, silly, and so delightful. Read the rest
The Fashion Institute of Technology has apologized for a "clearly racist" show where a black model was asked to wear giant red lips and black plastic ears. The model refused, but white colleages were photographed on the catwalk wearing the bizarre prostheses. The college's president is not sure if there was an explicitly racial comment being made, but is looking into it, reports the BBC:
"Currently," its president Joyce F Brown said in a statement, "it does not appear that the original intent of the design, the use of accessories or the creative direction of the show was to make a statement about race.
"However, it is now glaringly obvious that has been the outcome. For that, we apologise - to those who participated in the show, to students, and to anybody who has been offended by what they saw."
Amy Lefevre, the model who declined, talked to the New York Post and shared a test shot (above) taken before the show in which she wore the accessories.
“I stood there almost ready to break down, telling the staff that I felt incredibly uncomfortable with having to wear these pieces and that they were clearly racist,” Amy Lefevre, 25, told The Post.
“I was told that it was fine to feel uncomfortable for only 45 seconds.”
The designer, Junkai Huang, is reportedly "from China" and unaware of the racial connotations of the mask. Richard Thornn, the producer of the show, is reported to have "screamed" at a student who objected before the show and has more explaining to do. Read the rest
RompHim, the rompers-for-men company that achieved viral success a couple of years back, is going out of business. CNN reports that the initial focus on marketing to straight bros limited their appeal from the outset. Remaining stock is 75% off if you want one. Read the rest
The Museum of London will soon publicly display Charles I's execution vest for the first time. The doomed king wore the silk garment to the chopping block after his defeat in the English Civil War of the 17th century; 30 January is the 371st anniversary of his death at the Banqueting House on Whitehall.
The stains are said to be vomit, not blood. Read the rest
My jaw literally fell open when I first saw a clip of Fredrik Tjærandsen BA presentation for Central Saint Martins, the London art college. The Norwegian fashion designer and visual artist's graduate collection featured inflatable latex balloons around models' arms, legs, and torsos. Some of the pieces transformed into somewhat more conventional latex dresses as models floated down the runway.
Fittingly, the out-of-this-world collection was accompanied by Mica Levi's gorgeous and haunting soundtrack to Jonathan Glazer's 2014 sci-fi horror film, Under the Skin.
In this episode of Trenton & Heath, master cobbler Heath Potter resurrects a totally thrashed pair of Ferragamo loafers. You may think that 26 minutes is a long time to watch someone restore a pair of shoes, but just allow yourself to be enveloped by the artisinality of it all. The time will fly by and perhaps, like me, you will leave the experience deeply regretting having donated that pair of beat-up wingtips in the back of your closet. Read the rest
Boda Bodas are the ubiquitous motorbike taxis of Nairobi; Boda Boda drivers are in an arms-race to produce the most elaborately decorated motorbikes in order to differentiate themselves from the competition. Read the rest
Chicago's Volante (previously) bills itself as "streetwear for superheroes," and I love their clothes. They've just released an addition to their existing canon of Star Trek-themed, cosplay-adjacent clothes: the Picard Sweater, a stretchy knit tribute to Jean-Luc himself, the perfect thing to wear while you're watching Wil Wheaton host "The Ready Room," which airs after every episode. Read the rest
Kathryn Hughes's $19.95 CVS Receipt Scarf sends up the company's infamously absurd receipts -- at 58" long, the handmade/hand-cut scarves are only slightly shorter than the real thing! (via Kottke) Read the rest
Ewan Wilson spotted this remarkable jacket designed by Thierry Mugler in 1990, so odd it won its own spread (cropped above) in Elle magazine.
Certainly Giger-influenced, as Wilson suggests; check out the bottle designs of Mugler's contemporary eaux de parfum Womanity and Alien [Amazon].
Big Data is now dapper. An enterprising Etsy seller is making scarves that looks like oversized versions of CVS' impossibly long register receipts, coupons and all. These 59-inch-LONG fleece scarves are available from ReceiptScarves for $19.
Of course, I'm reminded of the IKEA rug that looks like an IKEA receipt.
Farouk James isn't the first young man from London to have amazingly good hair, but as you can see, he's clearly in a league of his own. James has a popular instagram; the BBC reports that his mom gets a lot of hate mail from people who are clearly jealous of her son's fabulous mane. But there is a serious angle: despite Britain's generally progressive bent, its creepily precise school uniforms mandate the hair's removal if he is to attend. She's working on getting the sexist policies reformed.
