When I started writing this blog entry, my intent was to mock the Forever Lazy. After all, it’s essentially an adult-sized, fleecy onesie with “zippered hatches in front and back for great escapes when duty calls” – Read More | Comment »

[Ed. Note: considering our reporter was apparently craning over a tray as she snapped these shots, we hope she still has her job. The Austin Chronicle takes no responsibility for her professional behavior] Read More | 5 Comments »

We're not going to leave well enough alone, here.
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Maybe the creatives at Converse all sat up in bed one night with a revelation. "The sunglasses collection is boring!" This is true, but at least it's not their idea of "wacky" either. Well, just in time for a wacky (but practical) Christmas comes the newest facewear addition:  Glow-in-the-dark shades! Read More | Comment »

There are a few things we insist upon when shopping for a brassiere. Avoid bulges, hike some boob support, and stand up straight. This according to the German or Russian matron at every department store who grabs said girls forthwith and manhandles them into submission. "You will sign ze papers!" Bet you never considered a real emergency though. Read More | Comment »

It was a meat dress fit for a wake. That's right, we said "meat." Being somewhat nearsighted, we have to admit that when Lady Gaga took the stage on Sunday night to accept her MTV Moon Man for Best Music Video, our initial reaction to her frock was, "Oh, faded, crushed, red velvet." After the seriously weighty Alexander McQueens Read More | Comment »

The second annual wannabe-ACL, aka Houston's Free Press Summer Fest, had its moments, with the Flaming Lips, Slim Thug, and Girl Talk all making me want to blank my blank-ies. Read More | Comment »

We knew it was going to happen. For some time it's been obvious that we would reach a point, maybe 2025, when the motto for young America's genitalia would be "see and be seen". The last frontier of publicly displayed naughty parts will sport unisex merkins, body paint, and tattoos, just to name today's available skin-tech. Read More | Comment »

I get pitched a lot of stories outside of my beat of movies and books, and usually those emails – about business trends, faith healers, Texas highways, the like – get trashed without out a second thought.
Sometimes, however, they get forwarded to my officemates.
Like you'd keep a pet chastity belt to yourself. Read More | Comment »

Remember those personalized Santa letters your parents used to get faked for you as a kid? Well, who's to say what you can and can't put in those little holes, now that you are a totally grown, responsible adult? Read More | Comment »

To retouch or not to retouch, that is never the question. For as long as technology has allowed (Adobe Photoshop celebrates its 20th anniversary next year), art directors of consumer magazines have used it to manipulate images. But many feel that what began as mere enhancement has gone too far. Read More | Comment »

The Japanese lingerie company Triumph International launched its newest bra-gadget, the ticking Husband-Hunting Bra, at the Tokyo Ryutsu Center in Tokyo today. Japanese government data show that 57% of Japanese women under 34 remain single, and with the marriage rate still plummeting among young Japanese, Triumph is making this statement of support, so to speak, for matrimony.
Triumph is also known for 2008's energy-friendly, solar-powered brassiere that generates enough energy to charge your phone or iPod, and 2007's My Chopsticks Bra, whose cups runneth over with not only your own bounty but with Chow Mein and rice as well. With holster-hoops on the sides of the cups and a "stick rest" in the cleavage, this over-the-shoulder boulder holster keeps your hands free for other demands, like fishing for your keys or produce shopping. (The Chopsticks Bra is socially purposed to promote the use of reusable chopsticks.) Read More | Comment »

ApocalyseWowDesign weighs in with a reminder to keep your Hamthrax to yourself with this bejeweled cod-piece for the face. Read More | Comment »

This product really speaks for itself, thank goodness. Let's take it straight to the video for...Cucchini! It's like Dr. Scholl's orthotics for the crotch! Yeah, I've got your painful arch! Read More | Comment »

This is the dizzying new spot from MAC's campaign to launch their own Hello Kitty line this spring. If you haven't come across this yet, take a few minutes to check out the odyssey of our Hello Kitty in Wonderland. By the way, according to Sanrio, the thirty-four year old character is not a cat, but a girl with no mouth, who speaks from the heart. Who knew? Read More | Comment »

This story from the NYT Sunday Styles section got me thinking about what will happen when the trend of "sensory cocktails" finally hits the States. According to the article, the whole process is supposed to "heighten the link between the drink and the experience," and it mentions an obvious drink like "The Tiki," in which you are sprayed with a mist of suntan oil and listen to tropical music while drinking a daiquiri, in order to "transport" you to the beach. While there's something a bit sad about drinking blindfolded while someone spritzes you with an unknown substance, it also got me thinking about how you could "transport" yourself to various Austin institutions without actually being there. A few suggestions came via fellow Chroniclers.. The Emo's: Sparkleberry (Sparks, vodka, cranberry juice), with a light mist of Camel Light and men's restroom aroma. The ACL-tini: Patchouli, Widespread Panic, vodka, a heat lamp. How to successfully recreate a "gray-haired hippie in a tie-dyed Grateful Dead shirt, riding a recumbent bicycle with a hemp-based bag of granola swinging from the handlebars" is still being debated. Other suggestions? Read More | Comment »

The simple wildflower-print dresses worn by the ladies of the Texas polygamist cult (hasn't anybody discovered their real name, or at least created a media moniker?) may indicate innocence, submission, and lack of vanity, but their updos stand for anything but. Cosmetics are apparently forbidden, but hair products can get you closer to salvation. God likes Extra Hold. These hairdos are at once stern, righteous, forbidding, and deliberate. They stand in contrast to the iconic hair of other rural women in, say, the American South – where most any Sunday morning service will find once fashion-forward hairstyles, on certain individuals mutating with every pass of the poison crop-duster into more and more elaborate parodies of the original. (Maybe pesticides gradually cloud up the mirrors around town.) Said permutations are not, in other words, necessarily deliberate. The polygamists' updos, however, seem somehow more, well, pointed. Since their lives are centered mainly around each other (at least that's how it is on HBO's Big Love), for whom exactly are these high and mighty hair messages meant? I think they're meant for each other. It's easy to imagine hair-height and projection of the unicorn-curl signifying some kind of station among the gals. Since male attention is coveted, one must assume that wave-width engineering has something to do with that. I'd be a lesbian polygamist and smuggle contraband around in mine. Murine for the alpha sister's coffee, perhaps, when Mr. Big Breeches' evening visitation schedule doesn't suit. Or flammable cans of travel-sized hairspray for those tricky days. Condoms ordered online, fluttering into the soup tureen. Definitely condoms. Read More | Comment »

Four solid hours out of Superdome City, doin' it to it and cookin' good down the superslab, dodging alligators and dead pedals, this wooly bear was startin' to nod off and decided to take a 10-100. So I pulled a short for some motion lotion and a mud ball. Well, my goodness gracious, look what I found. It's a matchmaker. For truckers. Now, these aren't your typical quasars. Nor are they concrete blondes or dress for sales. Not even San Quentin jailbait. No sir, these are some darlin' eager beavers and foxes with a hankerin' to get promoted to First Sargent. Even to old hands like yrself. Send away for the book and the tape, sign up with their system, and in a short-short, you'll be eyeball-to-eyeball with your future O.L., fer sure fer sure. Good to know somebody's looking out for the workin' man: Eighty-eights around the house, good buddy. We gone, we down and we like it. Read More | Comment »

You know when you leave the bathroom with a trail of TP stuck to your shoe? Well, I can't seem to shake Larry Craig. The non-re-election seeking Idaho Senator confessed late last month: "It's probably difficult for some to believe, but my wife and I had already decided that I would retire about a year ago." Poor Larry has plenty he can't shake, either. Obviously, he's a victim of (as he says), the "liberal media trying to put down a conservative guy." Awwwwwww. Well, it should come as no surprise to find him moonlighting as a poster boy for a New Orleans' designer, GoGo Jewelry. (I just about fell over when I saw this card in the window of the Magazine Street shop, and just had to share.) Oh, wait, that's not Craig; the model in the ad is wearing his telltale wedding band on his right hand… Besides, Craig is a discriminating fella. He'd never tap feet with a guy in white socks and Skechers. Read More | Comment »

In honor of No Pants Day (four hours of daylight left!), I present you with the following image: Ann Richards in her underwear. Go ahead. Think about it. You know you want to. Aero-engineered brassiere (the word "bra" does not suffice). Full-length paneled girdle (here worn over pantyhose). Sensible black shoes and an early-stage, low-flying bouffant. If that's not floating your boat, how about Barbara Jordan? Tailored navy slip, very Ralph, matching 1.5-inch, peep-toe pumps and, yes, glasses, what appears to be a watch, and strangely hammy hands. Fine: Jayne Mansfield (white Mirabeau bikini), Selena (black bra with white lace appliqué, tights, cap), George Strait (tighty whities, Stetson), and/or Jack Johnson (knit boxing shorts with blue sash belt) more to your liking? Tom Tierney does 'em all up and more in Famous Texas Women and Famous Texas Men Paper Dolls. They'll make you squeal (though maybe only on the inside). If the carefully styled and perfectly chosen skivvies don't get you, the random assortment of Texas characters will (Hello Beyoncé and Sam Houston, where's Lady Bird?). And for style-obsessed natives who grew up toddling to Neiman's (is there any other kind?), it's a heavenly confluence, indeed. Who didn't dream of playing with paper dolls of Ima Hogg, Quanah Parker, and Larry Hagman, all with three meticulously researched costumes? I mean, damn. Read More | Comment »