In a display of crocodile dundee-style bravado, Paul escaped after punching the shark with his left hand until the shark let go and swam away.
But, before you start researching the address of the local shark-defence boxing class, help is on its way.
An Australian manufacturer has produced a navy-approved Shark-Shield which emits electric pulses that can create muscle spasms to a sharks nose, from up to 8m away. Sharks have electro-receptors in their snout which they use to sense and hunt other fish who produce very small electrical impulses. The Shark Shield can also be fitted to surfboards. I'll keep that in mind, next time I visit Bells Beach.
This is essentially a fashion blog, so I started to think about clothing designers that consider people like De Gelder whose body-types are sans body-parts. I've lost count of the number of protests 'average' women make about fashion designers not catering to their body shape. I wonder how amputees like De Gelder would contribute to the debate? I'm almost certain they would make able-bodied complaints such as "the skirt makes my legs look fat and short" seem redundant.
One designer to start considering those with missing limbs was Alexander McQueen, when he produced an intricately hand-carved wooden pair of legs for US double amputee paralympian, Aimee Mullins.
In 1999 he cast Mullins to open his spring/summer collection simply entitled No. 13. The collection featured a heavy amount of wooden materials used in sculptural skirts, neck pieces, chest plates and of course, Aimee's wooden lasts'.
The fashion show notes on McQueens reference points for the No.13 collection are thin on the ground, so I've taken creative licence to write my own. In the west, 13 is often seen as an unlucky number. How many times have we all used the expression knock on wood in reference to avoid tempting fate? McQueen provided enough wood in that collection to provide a nice contrast to that unlucky 13. Unfortunately not quite enough to bring him back from the dead. (May he R.I.P)
In Aimee Mullins case, what better reference could McQueen make to being unlucky No. 13, than using an amputee model?
Mcqueens real talent for fashion design lies in the subversion and contrast of polar opposite ideas. At a very basic level, his collection explorers the familiar fashion theme of beautiful-ugly by turning (what some would call) an 'ugly' body-type (i.e missing limb) and replacing it with something even more beautiful than the original. He turned the macarbe, into the desirable. He took a practical, functional object such as a prosthetic leg and turned it into a piece of art.
It did however, raise questions about other reasons why he may have used Aimee and her wooden legs. Some accused him of making light of her missing limbs by decorating her legs with exquisite flower detail. I also began to think about how the inclusion of the leg in the fashion show could highlight the commodification of body parts, which fuel the illegal international black market organ trade in kidneys and hearts (it should be noted, however, that Aimees legs were never for sale).
But while I'm a huge a fan of McQueens wooden legs and designers that create genuinely beautiful and functional fashion for amputees, I hope that any future design falls on the right side of tasteful. In this logo-obsessed world of modern fashion that we currently live in, logomania and amputee fashion has the capacity to fall into the wrong hands (or legs).
What are your thoughts?
the EDITer.
