18-year-old Siddharth Mandala of Hyderabad has developed an "electroshoe" that will allow women to fend off attackers. One kick with the shoe and it'll deliver a powerful electric shock to an assailant. The shoe also automatically recharges itself through energy harvested from the wearer's footsteps.
So far Mandala has only developed a prototype. And unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any footage of the electroshoe in action.
The idea reminds me of the spiked defense shoes from 1955.
In 1946, Micheline Bernardini modeled a two-piece swimsuit designed by Louis Reard, which he called a 'bikini' — naming it after the site of the recent atomic bomb test in the Bikini Atoll.
As wikipedia notes: "Photographs of Bernardini and articles about the event were widely carried by the press. The International Herald Tribune alone ran nine stories on the event. The bikini was a hit, especially among men, and Bernardini received over 50,000 fan letters."
The little box she's holding is what the bikini was sold in, to emphasize how tiny it was.
Forty years later Bernardini posed again in a bikini, "for old time's sake."
I can't figure out what picture she's holding. It doesn't seem to be the famous one, shown above. Must have been another photo from the shoot.
It's become a bit of an iconic image — a young woman wearing a cactus bikini. The photo dates back to 1940 when the Tucson Sunshine Climate Club dressed some University of Arizona coeds up in cactus apparel as a publicity stunt. Of course, it wouldn't have been called a 'bikini' back then, since that term wasn't yet coined. It was called a "cactus sun suit." The suits were made out of Saguaro and prickly pear cacti.
The photos then spread far and wide, including into Nazi newspapers, where they were offered as examples of American decadence, "a peak of utter lack of taste."
As a model at Chicago's Merchandise Mart in the late 1930s, Myrtle Reinhart got to dress up in things like lampshades, curtains, and streamlined underwear beneath a coverall of cellophane.
"You've heard women say they haven't anything to wear. Well, next time they say it, men, look around the house a bit and see what you can find. Miss Myrtle Reinhart at the Chicago Merchandise Mart's home furnishing show produced this lampshade outfit." (continued below)
Pittsburgh Press - July 18, 1937
"Golfing Outfit: At least it would draw attention away from those dubbed shots. It wasn't really designed for the links, however, but to demonstrate the new streamlined underwear. Myrtle Reinhart and Don Fristy do a bit of golfing on the roof of Chicago's great Merchandise Mart with the above-mentioned streamlined undies and a coverall of cellophane for appearance's sake."
Star Tribune - July 17, 1938
In 1965, "granny gowns" became the favorite fashion among teenage girls. These featured long, ankle-length skirts, long sleeves, and high, round necklines. They were seen as a reaction against miniskirts and other skin-revealing fashions.
In November, 1965 one girl got sent home from school for wearing a granny gown — told it violated the school policy against "extreme clothing."
Fashion from the 1970s. For couples that like to match.
The Oshkosh Northwestern - Jan 8, 1970
Unisex apparel goes one step further with the advent of "His and Her" two-piece bikinis, shown in New York from the design board of Rudi Gernreich, creator of the topless bathing suit. The male's top looks like an athletic shirt that ends mid-point between the shoulder and elbow, exposing the abdomen from that point to the waistline.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.