Maharajas' Express: The Most Expensive Train in India

Operating since January 2010, Maharajas’ Express is the newest luxury train of Indian Railways and easily one of the most expensive one in Asia. For 8 days this pan Indian train takes guests on a ride across the best and the most prominent destinations of the country - Taj Mahal, the Khajuraho temples, wildlife environs of Ranthambore, Fatehpur Sikri and the holy bathing Ghats of Varanasi. The cheapest rate per person per day is a whopping US$ 800 for a Deluxe cabin. The next two slabs are US$ 900 and US$ 1,400. And the Presidential Suite comes for US$ 2,500.

This train is a joint venture between Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) and Cox and Kings India Ltd. The tour is being promoted as 'Luxury travel like no other' and not without reason. The Maharajas' Express will have 88 passengers (a normal III AC coach packs in 72) living in suites fit for a prince. All food and drinks are complimentary.

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Sheep Occupy Madrid Street to Protest Grazing Laws

Spanish shepherds led flocks of sheep through the streets of downtown Madrid on Sunday in defense of ancient grazing, migration and droving rights threatened by urban sprawl and man-made frontiers. Jesus Garzón, president of a shepherds council, said about 5,000 sheep and 60 head of cattle crossed the city to exercise the right to droving routes that existed before Madrid grew from a rural hamlet to the great capital it is today.

Pablo Blazquez Dominguez / Getty Images

Shepherds have a right to use 78,000 miles of paths for seasonal livestock migrations from cool highland pastures in summer to warmer grazing in winter. The movement is called transhumance and in Spain it involves around a million animals, mostly sheep and cattle. Some paths have been used annually for more than 800 years, and modern-day Madrid is in the way of two north-south routes. The Puerta del Sol - a thronging plaza that is Spain's equivalent of New York City's Times Square - now straddles one of the routes.

For the past 18 years, shepherds have halted traffic in autumn to assert their rights to cross the city.

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Lençóis Maranhenses National Park: The Flooded Desert

The Lençóis Maranhenses National Park located in Maranhão state, in northeastern Brazil, is one of the most marvelous and unique places in the world. An area encompassing about 1000 square kilometers of white silky sands intercepted at regular intervals by endless cool oases of turquoise lakes.

At first glance Lençóis Maranhenses looks like an archetypal desert. In fact it isn't actually a desert just like the Tottori Sand Dunes aren’t. Lying just outside the Amazon basin, the region is subject to a regular rain season during the beginning of the year. The rain water accumulates in the valleys in between sand dunes and forms clear blue and green lagoons that reach their fullest between July and September. The area is also surprisingly home to a variety of fish which, despite the almost complete disappearance of the lagoons during the dry season, have their eggs brought from the sea by birds. Mangroves, deserted beaches, buritis - a graceful kind of palm tree - and the Preguiças River help compose the park's diversity.

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Street Food Vendors From Around the World

In general understanding, street food is a quick meal or drink sold in a street or other public place, such as a market or fair, by a vendor, often from a portable stall or a push cart or basket. Street foods are often regional, though many are not, having spread beyond their region of origin. Tourists and locals alike often flock to these roadside vendors because it gives people a closer connection with the food, culture and tradition of a region. Besides, they are cheap.

The street food culture is found all over the world but particularly prevalent in the continent of Asia. If you love traveling and eating street food, you will enjoy this fascinating picture gallery.

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Single Stroked Spiral Illsurations by Chan Hwee Chong

In order to demonstrate their Artist Pen’s precision and control, Faber Castell hired Singapore-based designer Chan Hwee Chong to create meticulous spiral drawings of three great masterpieces using their pens. He has recreated Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Van Gogh's self-portrait and Johannes Vermeer's the Girl with the Pearl Earring with a single stroke.

“As you can imagine, every mistake meant we need to start all over again. This project not only involved skill but lots of resilience and patience, much like a spider spinning its web,” the 33-year-old artist said. Mr Hwee Chong added: 'It wasn't as easy as we thought. We went through many rounds of trial and error, painstaking drawing the masterpieces in one controlled line, by hand.”

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The Floating Islands of Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca is a lake located on the border of Peru and Bolivia, about 3,811 meter above sea level, making it the highest commercially navigable lake in the world. By volume of water, it is also the largest lake in South America.

Titicaca is notable for a population of pre-Incan people called Uros who live on artificial islands made of floating reeds called totora. These islands have become a major tourist attraction for Peru, drawing excursions from the lakeside city of Puno. The purpose of the island settlements was originally defensive, and if a threat arose they could be moved. The largest island even retains a watchtower almost entirely constructed of reeds.

The totora is a cattail type rush growing native in the lake. Its dense roots support the top layer, which rots and must be replaced regularly by stacking more reeds on top of the layer beneath. The islands change in size, and more are created as the need arises. The surface of the islands are uneven, thin, and walking on it feels like walking on a waterbed. The unwary might not notice a thin spot and sink a leg or more into the frigid waters of the lake.

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Berlin Restaurant Serves Stone Age Food

A new restaurant has recently opened up at Berlin. You won’t find cheese, bread or sugar here. Instead, guests at the Sauvage restaurant are served dishes made only of ingredients that would have been available to hunter-gatherer of the Paleolithic age, also known as the Stone Age.

The menu includes salads with olives, capers and pine nuts; gluten-free bread with nut-based butter or olive tapenades; smoked salmon with herb dressing; and other various meat and fish dishes. Gluten- and sugar-free cakes, like a spicy pumpkin pie, are available for those Stone Age diners who refuse to forego desert. A focus on transparency is also important to the owners: Sauvage's guests know exactly what ingredients they are eating in every dish.

Sauvage, which is also the French word for "savage" or "wild," is part of the Paleolithic diet movement, whereby adherents eat only foodstuffs that would have been available to Stone Age humans. This means organic, unprocessed fruit and vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, and herbs. The truly obsessed build an entire lifestyle around the concept, mimicking caveman-era exercise -- lifting boulders and running barefoot, with some even emulating the blood loss they believe Stone Age hunters might have experienced in pursuit of their dinner by donating blood every few months.

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Urine Soaked Boiled Eggs: A Chinese Delicacy

As spring sets in, a strange but familiar smell permeates the air in Dongyang City of China’s Zhejiang Province, as locals begin to eat the seasonal "virgin egg." It’s the smell of urine, because "virgin eggs" are actually eggs boiled in the urine of virgin boys. The local word is Tongzi Dan which translates to “boy egg”. This bizarre street eat, though appalling to an outsider, has been a standard street fare in Dongyang for hundreds of years.

The process for making Tongzi Dan boiling the eggs in urine. After being brought to a boil in the steaming urine, the eggs are removed, their shells are cracked and they are placed back into the boiling urine to soak up flavor.

Residents of Dongyang love it. "It's so delicious that I can eat 10 eggs a day," said a woman who moved to Dongyang several years ago However, not all Dongyang people are interested in them. One local resident, said he had never tasted "virgin eggs." "I can't stand the smell. It's awful."

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John Cerney's Giant Cut-Out People

John Cerney is a Salinas, California native whose artwork can best be described as ‘giant cut-out art’, ordinarily viewed from the comfort of your automobile, although he calls himself a muralist. But Cerney found out years ago that painting on a wall was restricting to the effect he was looking for.

After earning an art degree from Cal State Long Beach in 1984, Cerney worked in Southern California as a portrait artist, rendering finely detailed pencil drawings. His patrons were television producers and writers, as well as such clients as the late comedian John Candy and hockey star Wayne Gretzky.

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Wanting to reach a larger audience, Cerney would relocate to Central California periodically and convince a farmer to allow him to paint a mural on his barn, just for practice. This ultimately led to commissions from local business owners to paint their walls. Finally realizing that he could earn a living painting murals and gain a wider audience, he moved back to Salinas in 1991 to concentrate on his wall paintings.

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Brushless Paintings by Amy Shackleton

Amy Shackleton is a 25-year old Torornto based artist who paints without brushes. Instead, she uses gravity. Shackleton uses ketchup like bottles to squeeze copious amount of paint onto the canvas and then rotates it to manipulate the flow of the paint. As the paint streaks down the canvas she guides it to create curves, lines, splashes and landscapes.

In a 30-hour time-lapse video posted on YouTube, Shackleton can be seen working on a new urban landscape painting titled “Terrace City.” Watch the two and a half minute video at the end of this post.

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World's Largest Scale Model of the Solar System Covers Entire Sweden

The Sweden Solar System is the world's largest model of our planetary system, built at a scale of 1:20 million and stretches the entire length of the country. The Sun is represented by the Globe arena in Stockholm, the largest spherical building in the world. The planets are placed and sized according to scale with the inner planets being in Stockholm and Jupiter at the International airport Arlanda. The outer planets follow in the same direction with Saturn in Uppsala and Pluto in Delsbo, 300 km from the Globe. The model ends at the Termination shock, 950 km from the Sun.

At each planet station, exhibits provide information about astronomy and the natural sciences, and also about related mythology and culture. The Stockholm Visitor's Board (former Stockholm Information Service) was a sponsor of the project in the beginning, like several museums, theaters, parks and scientific institutions.

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Coffin Makers Linder Launch Raunchy Coffin Calendar

Linder, Poland’s biggest coffin manufacturer, has been using scantly clad models to promote their products for the last three years. The 2012 calendar used naked models in body paint frolicking around funeral caskets.

The first calendar appeared in 2010 and featured photos of female models dressed in sexy outfits posing with coffins. In the following year, the 2011 calendar showed drop dead gorgeous ladies in sexy lingerie draped over the caskets performing movie scenes from films like James Bond, Reservoir Dogs and The Godfather. But the calendar sparked controversy in Catholic Poland with the church spokesman calling the calendar tasteless and shocking. Notwithstanding, the first edition of the coffin calendar sold over 3,000 copies.

The company has been making wood products since the 1940s, and, after the fall of Communism a little over two decades ago, Lindner has become the largest producer of coffins in Poland. In 2007, they sold over 100,000 of them. Nowadays the company not only sells coffins in Poland but to the rest of Europe of well.

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Cano Cristales: The River of Five Colors

The Cano Cristales is a river of Colombia located in the Sierra de la Macarena. For most of the year, Cano Cristales is indistinguishable from any other river: a bed of rocks covered in dull green mosses are visible below a cool, clear current. However, for a brief period of time every year the most amazing transformation occurs - the river blossoms in a vibrant explosion of colors.

During the short span between the wet and dry seasons, the water level drops enough for the sun to warm the moss and algae on the river's bottom, and this warmth leads to an explosive growth of blooms. A unique species of plant that lines the river floor called Macarenia clavigera turns a brilliant red. It is offset by splotches of yellow and green sand, blue water, and a thousand shades in between. This only happens for a brief period in between seasons for a few weeks from September through November.

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Cano Cristales has been called the river of five colors or even the most beautiful river in the world.

Cano Cristales is located in a remote, isolated area not easily accessible by road. The site was closed to tourists for several years because of terrorist activity in the region along with concerns about the environmental impact of tourism. It was reopened to visitors in 2009, and today there are several Colombian Tourist Agencies that will fly travelers to La Macarena. From there it is a short trip into "Serrania de la Macarena," the national park in which Cano Cristales is located.

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Kandovan: An Iranian Village Carved in the Rocks

Tucked away in the remote northwest corner of Iran is the village of Kandovan that is not only famous for its scenic beauty, but also for the unique dwellings of its residents. Many of its homes have been made in caves located in cone-shaped, naturally formed compressed volcanic ash formations that make the landscape look like a gigantic termite colony. Current residents of Kandovan claim that their village is more than 700 years old. It was created when those fleeing the advancing Mongol army took to the caves to hide. The homes are known as "karan" in the local Turkic dialect, a word that roughly translates as the plural of beehive.

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Over the years, the people of the village have expanded their residences. Now, most cave dwellings range from two to four stories complete with living areas, a storage room and an animal shelter. Many have porches, windows, doors and stairwells carved into the rock. The caves are also some of the most energy efficient homes on Earth, with the rock providing adequate insulation to keep the interiors comfortable throughout the long cold season. The homes also remain cool in the summer.

If you wish to visit this unique village, it is located in Iran's East Azerbaijan Province, 60 km south of the provincial capital Tabriz in Osku county.

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Dog Fashion Show in Florida

A fashion show for dogs titled Patterns for Paws was held on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The show featured dogs, some from the Broward County Humane Society, wearing clothes that had been created by area designers. The event was organized to raise funds for sheltering, caring and providing medical treatment to homeless pets. Rescue officials hoped to raise more than $25,000 from the event.

The Amanda Foundation, the organization behind the show, was founded in 1976 and has since placed thousands of homeless animals, and up to 10,000 adoptions a year.

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Superman Fan Undergoes Cosmetic Surgery to Look Like The Superhero

Most kids will eventually get over their childhood obsession with comic book superheroes by the time they reach high school, but not Herbert Chavez. This 35-year old Filipino designer is so crazed with Superman that he has undergone several cosmetic surgery for his nose, cheeks, lips and chin down to his thighs and even his skin color to look more like the "Man of Steel."

For more than a decade, Chavez has undergone a series of procedures that have made his nose higher and slimmed down his thighs. He has had surgery on his cheeks, lips and chin, and injections to whiten his skin. He is planning for more operations that will give him more muscular abdomen and even looking forward to having metal inserted in his legs to make him taller. He has designed his own Superman costumes and when not in them, he sports thick, black glasses to assume his idol's nerdier incarnation, mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent.

Photo: Cheryl Ravelo/REUTERS

Herbert Chavez’s admiration began when he was a child and watched Superman lifting a stack of cars on the big screen. He later began collecting Superman memorabilia, amassing a huge collection over the years. Now his house is packed with Superman cups, bed spreads, action figures and life-size Superman statues.

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Amateur Rocket Launch Reaches 121,000 Feet [Photo + Video]

Amateur rocketeer Derek Deville and his team from Qu8k (pronounced "quake") launched their home-built 26-foot rocket to an astounding height of 121,000 feet (36,880 meter) on September 30, 2011 from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. The rocket reached that height after 92 seconds attaining speeds of 2,185 mph (3,516 km/h). Incredibly, the total duration of thrust was just 8 seconds during which a total of 4000 pounds was delivered. The rocket itself was 320 pounds in weight.

"The rocket motor produced 4,000 lbs (1,814 kg) of thrust for eight seconds, accelerating the vehicle to over Mach 3 at over 10,000 foot. After that, momentum carried the rocket skyward for another 84 seconds to a peak altitude of 121,000 foot," Deville says.

An onboard camera recorded the entire ascent. Highlights of the incredible footage can be watched below. The full video can be seen at the end of this gallery.

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Ready to Cook Featherless Chicken

An Israeli geneticist, Avigdor Cahaner, created the world's first featherless chicken at the genetics faculty at the Rehovot Agronomy Institute near Tel Aviv, Israel. The bare-skinned bird was created by cross breeding a broiler with a species that has a featherless neck. The idea behind the development of this naked bird is that it will create a more 'convenient' and energy efficient chicken which can live in warm countries where feathered chickens don't do well and cooling systems are too expensive to be commonly affordable. And of course, the bird doesn’t require plucking, saving additional money in processing plants.

Opponents of the chicken say that the changes do not benefit the animals, and are in fact likely to make their lives worse. Males have been unable to mate because they cannot flap their wings for balance, and this also effects the females. Because they are featherless, chickens of both sexes are more susceptible to parasites, skin diseases, mosquito attacks, temperature variations and sunburn.

Professor Avigdor Cahaner, defended the bird by saying, "This is not a genetically modified chicken - it comes from a natural breed whose characteristics have been known for 50 years. I am just transferring that to fast growing broiler chickens. It's a normal chicken except for the fact it has no feathers." The scientists also hope the new breed will grow faster because it won't need to use energy to grow feathers and that will would also cause the chicken itself to grow larger.

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World’s First Solar Plant That Generates Power at Night Opens in Spain

The new Gemasolar Power Plant near Seville in southern Spain is the world’s first solar plant to have the capacity to generate electricity even at night. More than 2600 concentrically arranged mirrors spread across 185 hectares of rural land concentrate solar energy towards a centrally located molten nitrate salt tank. As the rays converge, they super-heat the salt to over 900C, causing water around the tank to boil and drive steam turbines. In addition, any superfluous heat generated during the day is stored within the liquefied salt. It acts like a giant thermal battery for driving the turbines at night and during overcast days up to 15 hours at a time with no sunlight. But Seville, being one of the sunniest areas in Europe, this doesn’t happen very often.

The $US410 million Gemasolar plant that just opened has a potential output of 20 megawatts, though it is currently operating below that capacity. Officials expect it could reach 70 per cent capacity by 2012. It’s the largest solar power station of its type in Europe, and it has an annual production total or roughly 110 GWh/year — enough to power 25,000 homes and reduce atmospheric CO2 emissions by more than 30,000 tons a year.

The project, a joint venture between Abu Dhabu energy company Masdar and Spanish engineering firm SENER called Torresol Energy, took two years to construct at a cost of £260million.

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China’s Richest Village Opens Skyscraper Hotel

Not to be left behind by its urban counterparts, one of China's richest village, Huaxi, has built a 328m skyscraper hotel at a cost of $470 million, sending clear indication of the country’s economic growth. The Longxi International Hotel in the village of Huaxi has been built to celebrate the village's 50th anniversary. The village, located in east China's Jiangsu province, has become the first rural area in the world to have its own skyscraper.

The hotel boasts 800 suites that can hold 2,000 people, an exhibition hall, a revolving restaurant, and rooftop swimming pools and gardens. A sculpture of a bull, made from solid gold and reportedly weighing a tonne, has also been installed. The bull, a testament to the wealth of the village, will greet visitors from a viewing area on the sixtieth floor of the tower.

The 74-storey hotel has taken four years to complete and is now ranked as the 15th highest skyscraper in the world, taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris (324m) and the Chrysler Building in New York (319m).

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Hair Embroidery by Zaira Pulido

Colombian artist Zaira Pulido uses a unique material for embroidering, – yes, human hair. Zaira Pulido collects hairs from her friends and creates portraits of them using their own hair.

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Painting Like Landscapes Created From Junk by Tom Deininger

Born in 1970 in Boston, MA, Thomas Deininger is an artist receiving considerable attention as contemporary artist and environmentalist. Deininger, who is a highly regarded and collected fine art painter, credits his success on canvas is a direct result (and linked to) his background in abstract art. Deininger, widely known as the artist who turns (recycles) junk into fine art installations, has produced museum scale installations which are then collected by corporations and high profile collectors worldwide. Dieninger says he approaches both bodies of work with a "more than nature has to offer" mentality- and it shows in his art. Artana is proud to present 20 of his strongest oil paintings created in 2006 to our clients and following.

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The Lost Gardens of Heligan

The Lost Gardens of Heligan, near Mevagissey in Cornwall, is one of the most popular botanical gardens in the UK. The gardens were created by members of the Cornish Tremayne family, over a period from the mid-18th century up to the beginning of the 20th century – the garden evolving and becoming more extravagant with each passing generation. Throughout the 19th century, the gardens thrived, growing larger and requiring greater staff to manage them. Before the outbreak of World War I, the Tremayne estate employed 22 gardeners. Many of those loyal gardeners went to fight, and after the war their numbers had diminished so that the gardens fell into severe disrepair. As the rest of the estate was rented out, the gardens became an afterthought and were not rediscovered until the 1990s.

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Their rediscovery by a distant relative of the Tremayne estate, led to a widely publicized attempt to bring the gardens back to life. The restoration of the Heligan Gardens was undertaken by Tim Smit, the same architect who conceived The Eden Project, the largest Greenhouse complex in the world.

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Rude Hand Gestures of the World

Rude Hand Gestures of the World by Romana Lefevre is a photographic guide to the many ways of using hand gestures to offend people in different parts of the world. The book’s photography is by Daniel Castro, and published by Chronicle Books of San Francisco.

A hand gesture is arguably the most effective form of expression, whether you’re defaming a friend’s mother or telling a perfect stranger to get lost. Learn how to go beyond just flipping the bird with this illustrated guide to rude hand gestures all around the world, from asking for sex in the Middle East to calling someone crazy in Italy. Detailed photographs of hand models and subtle tips for proper usage make Rude Hand Gestures of the World the perfect companion for globe-trotters looking to offend.

Also see: Illustrated Guide to Italian Hand Gestures

Chin Flick

Meaning: Get lost
Used in: Belgium, France, Northern Italy, Tunisia

In France, this gesture is known as la barbe, or “the beard", the idea being that the gesturer is flashing his masculinity in much the same way that a buck will brandish his horns or a cock his comb. Simply brush the hand under the chin in a forward flicking motion. While not as aggressive as flashing one’s actual genitalia, this gesture is legal and remains effective as a mildly insulting brush-off.

Note: In Italy, this gesture simply means “No.”

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Carpet of Leaves Baffles Motorists and Pedestrians in London

At first glance, it looks like any ordinary road on an October day, covered with thousands of fallen leaves. Except the carpet of leaves has abrupt, geometric edges – made all the more striking by the patches of unaffected tarmac next to it. Careful inspection reveals the leaves are actually embedded on the tarmac

Motorists and pedestrians were baffled by the bizarre spectacle. It is speculated that the early fall of autumn leaves this season mixed with the scorching heat London suffered from last week softened a few sections of the tarmac, where the leaves became embedded after car tires ran over them creating a colorful collage that would probably last for many months.

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Janet Echelman’s Floating Sculptures

Janet Echelman is an American artist who creates fluid moving sculptures out of nets. Echelman was first inspired to use nets while on a Fulbright lectureship in India. There she learned netting techniques from local fisherman in Mahaballipuram. Her first public sculpture series, Bellbottoms, was installed in Mahaballipuram. Most of her sculptures since have been both machine and hand-woven from weather and UV-resistant fibers. In the last five years, using those fibers, she has built several permanent installations in Portugal, Denver, San Francisco, Phoenix, and British Columbia.

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Broken Down Victorian Era Homes Made Out of Lego

Inspired by a childhood trip to LEGOland, Mike Doyle now makes intricate broken down Victorian-style homes out of LEGO. These dilapidated houses point to the unreliability of precisely the material structures we regard as our security and foundation in the world. ‘Here is a charming home lovingly embellished with ornament that proved to be no match for nature,’ says Doyle.

Each of his houses can take up to 600 hours and over 100,000 Legos.

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Rainbow Eucalyptus–The Most Colorful Tree on Earth

These trees may look like they've been painted on, but these colors are all natural. This peculiar tree is called Eucalyptus deglupta, commonly known as the Rainbow Eucalyptus, and also known as the Mindanao Gum, or the Rainbow Gum. The multi-coloured streaks on its trunk comes from patches of outer bark that are shed annually at different times, showing the bright-green inner bark. This then darkens and matures to give blue, purple, orange and then maroon tones.

Eucalyptus deglupta is the only Eucalyptus species found naturally in the Northern Hemisphere. It grows naturally in New Britain, New Guinea, Ceram, Sulawesi and Mindanao. Now, this tree is cultivated widely around the world, mainly for pulpwood used in making paper, and also for ornamental purposes.

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Lombard Street–World’s Most Crooked Street?

Lombard Street in San Francisco is best known for the one-way section on Russian Hill between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets, in which the roadway has eight sharp turns (or switchbacks) that have earned the street the distinction of being the most crooked street in the world. The switchback's design was born out of necessity in order to reduce the hill's natural 27% grade, which was too steep for most vehicles to climb. Curiously though, the street is reserved for one-way traffic traveling downhill.

The crooked section of the street is about 400 meter long and paved with red bricks.

Also see Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world, and The Flat Streets of San Francisco

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Massive Wooden Rollercoaster in Abandoned Japanese Amusement Park

In Japan, there are many amusement parks that are lying in the state of neglect; their owners abandoned them because they became too expensive to run and tearing them down would cost them more. In one such park called "Nara Dreamland", located near the ancient city of Nara, is a massive rollercoaster made out of wood. Though significantly out of date by todays’ technical standards, the wooden roller coaster called Aska was one of the key attraction of the park. The park was opened in 1961 and closed in 2006.

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Embroidered Portraits by Cayce Zavaglia

American artist Cayce Zavaglia creates amazingly layered embroidered portraits that look more like paintings than thread work. From her website:

Initially, working with an established range of wool colors proved frustrating. Unlike painting, I was unable to mix the colors by hand. Progressively, I created a system of sewing the threads in a sequence that would ultimately give the allusion of a certain color or tone. The direction in which the threads were sewn had to mimic the way lines are layered in a drawing to give the allusion of depth, volume, and form. Over time the stitches have become tighter and more complex but ultimately more evocative of flesh, hair, and cloth.

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Controversial Cow Nipple Dress At London And Paris Fashion Week

Forget nip-slips. British designer Rachel Freire recently unveiled a collection of dresses at London's Fashion Week crafted entirely out of cow nipples - 3,000 to be exact. Unsurprisingly, her creation have instantly raised the ire of the public, politicians, bloggers and animal-rights groups alike, who have vilified her creations as “inappropriate and disturbing”, “absolutely grotesque”, “sickening and repulsive” and a “runaway freak show”. Freire however defended her dress saying she's simply "recycling" animal products that would otherwise have gone to waste.

According to Friere, the cow nipples were collected from tanneries, which would have been thrown out. All of the leather used on the dress is a byproduct of the meat industry and the nipples are a byproduct of that leather production. The people criticizing are clearly clueless about the amount of leather wasted on a daily basis.

Though the garments appeared on display at Somerset House during London Fashion Week, they never made it to the catwalk because they are too heavy to wear, said Freire. Though Freire has no plans to sell any of the unusual clothes, she does plan to make more nippled garment pieces.

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Alternative Hair Show 2011, in Moscow

Celebrating its 29th year but appearing for the first time in Russia, the London-based Alternative Hair Show event brought together the biggest names in the hairstyling industry to the Kremlin Palace last Wednesday to raise money for charity. Half of the ticket proceeds will go to Britain’s Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research charity, and the other 50 percent to Russia’s Gift of Life.

The show has grown into the world's most prestigious annual hairdressing event, hosting leading teams and inspirational hair artists from all over the globe. Since it first began in 1983, the Alternative Hair Show has now raised more than £8 million for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research.

It’s “the biggest hairstyling event in the world,” said Tony Rizzo, who organizes the show. It “started way back in 1983, when I lost my son to leukemia. In those days, the research for leukemia was just starting off. There wasn’t any research into rare forms of the disease.”

“Our aim is to make a difference, to show that beauty can cure,” Rizzo said. “We have some of the biggest names in the industry coming to show their collections in Moscow for the first time. It’s like the Eurovision song contest for hair — only bigger because we have the best designers from the whole world.”

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