Air Hostess, I Like the Way You Dress…

The Japanese fascination with the air hostess uniforms given to employees of Japan Airlines (JAL) has prompted such a high demand for the goods that a black market has been created.

Although shops selling replica uniforms are very common on the streets of Japan, the desire to own the authentic JAL uniform has created a remarkably competitive market for them, with the genuine article often selling for thousands of dollars.

Those shops supplying the uniforms hope that many more will soon become available as the company filed for bankruptcy back in January.

What not to wear in the office

Bespoke corporatewear supplier NKD Clothing has published a list of workwear faux pas that may leave some of you quaking in your all-too-casual Ugg boots….

• First up, cleavage and short skirts are a big no-no. Though they may attract a lot of attention, it is almost always for the wrong reasons. Likewise, keep your towering stilettos, lacy camisoles and fishnet tights for the weekend.
• At the other end of the scale, jeans, Ugg boots and that woolly jumper your grandma knitted you for Christmas may well be a little too casual for the workplace. The same applies to flip-flops and trainers, or anything that would not look out of place in a gym.
• Finally, clothes should always be clean and ironed and complemented with tasteful jewellery and neat hair. Over-the-top makeup should be avoided at all costs, as well as anything too outrageous or trendy.

But how seriously should we take these rules? A quick look around the office and I’ve already seen at least 8 violations of the NKD guidelines, but does that make us any less professional? I’d like to think not. In companies where there is little face-to-face contact with clients, comfort may well take precedence over formality. With such diversity in the expectations of individual workplaces, I would suggest that perhaps the only rules we should be following are those listed in the company dress code.

Your pants offend me

Do nudists hate pants? It's a serious question. The British Naturism society are having their annual meeting at Alton Towers (Where else?! - all those rides, the fresh air, the queues...eh?) but, bizarrely, the event is being sponsored by an underwear company called Kiniki. Unsurprisingly the naturists are up in arms.

John Walker of Kiniki doesn't understand what the fuss is about though: “We’re not trying to be cheeky or step on anyone’s toes here. We simply thought it was a great event to be a part of. I can see how people who don’t like wearing clothes could get shirty about us being their sponsor. You could say it’s the equivalent of a butcher sponsoring a vegetarian event." An interesting analogy.

Established in 1976, Kiniki has grown from a backroom business for mail order men’s underwear to a company with more than 30 million sales under its belt (if the naturists were offered belts a riot could break out).

CARdigan

A car made from clothes. There's a novel idea. Well, in fact, it's been made. And in some style too, as you can see from this picture. The story on The Telegraph website gives some details of car's components: "The car is made from 1,999 items - including 1,682 t-shirts, 88 pairs of jeans, 64 pairs of shoes and 31 belts". Fan belts presumably?

A team of eight people worked for five hours at the Puma store in Carnaby Street, London, to turn the pile of clothes into a model of Kimi Raikkonen's motor. Black jeans are used for the tyres and red t-shirts give the car its classic Ferrari colour. Many fans have been visiting the store to see the car while a time-lapse video showing the team making the car has been watched more than 130,000 times on the internet.

Creative director Peter Hale, from GBH Design, said: "The Formula1 car was great fun to make and looks great.We worked like a pit crew when making it - each person piecing a different part of the car together."

Pants

What's a good way to get people to think about their health? Adverts? Leaflets? Pretty standard stuff like that at least right?

Not in China. Oh no. For them, to make men aware of the dangers of wearing pants that are too tight they hung a 12ft pair of pants from the front of a hospital in Changsha Bo Da Hospital in Changsha, southern China. Certainly an interesting marketing strategy. Although, it's clearly worked as even we are blogging about it, passing on their message. Perhaps not so pants after all!

Mayor steals undies?

A mayor has been charged with stealing underwear in Lancashire. This bizarre tale came to light after several female residents contacted the police about the missing underwear. The man, Ian Stafford, has been charged on three counts of burglary and has, reportedly, resigned his position as Mayor. Which makes sense.

Why he didn't just go to shops to buy the underwear isn't mentioned, but it seems an extreme length to go to in order to avoid having to buy underwear in public.

Dr Doolittle

We've often seen how ingenious humans can be when it comes to helping animals out with clothing. Here's another story we can fill away in under the same category - a penguin being given wet suit.

Clearly this isn't to help him swim. No, bizarrely, the poor chaps feathers all fell out and this put him at risk of sunburn. So the staff at Penguin World (where else?) put together a wetsuit for him from the legs of a man size wetsuit.

Now he can swim about to his hearts content, keeping safe from the sun, and nice and warm too. Warms the cockles of your heart doesn't it?

All aboard the wedding train

A bride in China went slightly over board on her wedding dress last week, making the train of the garment a mere 1.4 miles long. Yes you read that right. 1.4 miles. The groom's mother said, a touch harshly, 'It is a waste of money in my opinion," She's got a point.

The guests had to helped unroll the dress too. It took 200 of them almost three hours to do so. Three hours?! Unrolling a wedding address? Still, not a day you'd forget in a hurry. How does this compare to other clothing excesses? Got any funny, interesting examples? Did you go a touch overboard on your big day in the dress department? Let us know below.

Under the cover of darkness

Some Friday fun as it's Friday.

A powercut in Lincolnshire has been blamed on underwear that was carried into pylon's on helium balloons. The underwear - a thong if you want to be specific - was attached to the balloon and then must have floated up into the transformer. The local polo club's summer party is thought to be the most likely place of origin for the offending article. Polo players are always the ones to blame aren't they?!

What a bizarre story. Have a nice weekend.

UnBAAleviable

Sheep are shrinking?! What the Dickens. IS there no END to this madness in the world right now?!

With sheep shrinking wool shortages will become common, knitting will become a dark art, practicsed underground by knitting junkies looking for their next hit of wool to weave;, needle abuse will have a whole new meaning; nice thick jumpers to keep out the cold will become mythical, like a golden fleece, and we'll all be freezing.

Or maybe we won't, who knows.

Under the skin

A New Zealand airline company has hit upon an ingenious way to make the flight safety video a little more entertaining: present it in the nude! But, while having the uniforms painted on to look as if they are wearing clothing. Confused? Take a look here



As you can see those in the video can barely contain their laughter and it's testament to some clever camera work that more intimate areas are not exposed. But you have to say, the ties and scarves are certainly well done; they do look quite real.

Wimbledon! Tennis! Ace!

Have you been enjoying the tennis? Dash awful fun we must say. This Murray chaps a bit good what what? The outfits worn by the players are certainly something too - Federer was in some lovely military style jacket and the ladies appear to be taking part in some 'who can wear the shortest dress' competition alongside the main tennis competition.

Right, sorry for updating so late today, still sleeping off yesterday's Pimms.

Star Trekking

As you will remember for the Awards back in March (can it be that long ago?) we asked companies to design Star Trek uniforms for the Design Innovation Challenge. They were all awesome, and were placed on display as guest entered the champagne reception - if you weren't there you missed out!

Therefore we were pleased to see the trend continued, with the recent story about corsets designed in Star Trek colours and piping. Have a look at a couple of pictures here on the Telegraph website.

Outfoxed

City foxes are becoming more and more populous and so their interactions with humans are bound to increase. In Germany, one such city fox has become a notorious shoe thief, 86 pairs of shoes beings found in the fox's den, and more nearby.

Why would a fox want shoes? Are its own feet not suited enough for city living so it decided some human footwear was necessary? If so, that's a fairly clever piece of work by Fantastic Mr Fox. In fact, perhaps there are tunnels all over the place that old Foxy Loxy's set up to reach the bakers, the butchers and so on to save on the effort of catching his food.

Word of mouth

The trouble with letting people write their own opinions on things online is that they can abuse the system for the purposes of comedy. This can lead to some odd occurences, perhaps none odder than the story that a T-shirt on Amazon has risen 2,300% through the Amazon rankings in the last few days.

This happened after users started to read endless positive, 5-star, tongue in cheek reviews of the T-shirt, in a collective joke that has had unforseen consequences. This is not the first time this has happened on Amazon - a photo of Paul Ross has equally positive reviews, although we don't think the reviews have increased sales. People still have some sense.

Pants Man!

Ah Tuesday...lovely lovely Tuesd...what? It's Wednesday? That must mean we missed yesterday entirely and forgot to blog...oh dear, so we did, no blog. Doh.

Anyways...pants, they've been everywhere lately. Even the most ardent anti-Apprentice person surely heard about the infamous Pantsman - the world's worst idea - and now we hear that a footballer has been told by police not to run through a seaside resort in his underwear - after hearing he was planning to do so after losing a bet.

The footballer's defence is quite a good one actually. It's a seaside resort, people see that much all the time on the seafront...but the police are concerned it could lead to more trouble. We're surprised the footballer in question is so keen to go through with his bet. Surely any excuse to not have to humiliate yourself is a good thing?

Euro Vision

So Eurovision is upon us. Company Clothing has little interest in the music on offer, but the costumes, well they are something else. Often garish, rarely stylish, and almost always outlandish, it's fun to see how a nation chooses to represent itself through music and fashion.

It's unlikely anyone will ever top Lordi from Finland though - look at them in this picture with their flowers. Ridiculous! However, if you know / remember a more OTT outfit please let us know in the comments form below. Nice how that rhymes. Have a good weekend!

Horsing around

We could probably do a 'cute animal' story every day, perhaps we should limit ourselves to one a week; but we've had no calls to stop, so probably won't.

Anyways, today's is an especially good one as it involves numerous creatures wearing traditional German dress (shrug), mostly notably a horse, but also dogs too.

Where these people suddenly get their brainwaves from is beyond us. It's enough of a challenge to look stylish and sophisticated everyday, let alone worrying about animals - and they have their own clothes anyway. Bizarre.

Alpaca Mac

A cute animal story to ease us all back into the working week after the joys of bank holiday Monday. A baby alpaca has been given a little high-vis coat help keep it warm in the inclement spring weather. Bless.

Friday Fun

The end of another week and to wind down towards the weekend here are two stories to keep you intrigued for a few minutes.

First off, a lucky stop this one, a woman was shot at, but saved, when the bullet hit the wiring in her bra. She still ended up in hospital, which isn't funny at all of course, but the injuries, were 'not life threatening', so hopefully she'll be okay.

Second - health and safety officers in Liverpool have told a clown he has to stop wearing his giant, novely, funny shoes because they are a health and safety risk - to be fair this was after he had fallen from a high wire while wearing them and broke his metatarsel.

Well, enjoy. Have a groovy weekend and if you're in or around the capital of London make your way down on Sunday for the marathon!