Cougar Effect Boosts Lingerie Sales

Sales of sultry lingerie among older women are booming in Britain thanks to the glamorous 40-somethings of “Sex and the City 2″ and “Cougar Town,” retail chain Debenhams reported.

The hit TV show, and forthcoming movie, featuring the bedroom antics of women in their 40s and 50s and their much younger partners, is being credited with a rise in demand for lingerie from women of the same age, Debenhams said.

The department store said a nationwide analysis of the most popular lingerie styles from October 2009 to April 2010, revealed that women over 40 have given the more seductive side of the lingerie industry a big boost.

“Positive female role models in this age group such as the women in the Sex and the City movies and Courteney Cox in TV’s Cougar Town are giving the women confidence to splash out on themselves,” Debenhams head lingerie buyer Annette Warburton said in a statement.

Women over 40 were rediscovering their figures, often after having children or getting divorced.

Desk-Bound Men Target Of New Wonder Underwear

Businessmen who vowed to hit the gym daily in 2010 but are yet to leave the desk are the target of a new, fast-growing line of high-tech underwear which boasts to trim the torso while also benefiting your health.

Just ask Gavin Jones, co-founder of Australia-based company Equmen which has pioneered “fitwear” for men who spend the week hunched over desks in high-stress jobs and weekends chasing their children.

Jones said compression wear was well researched and accepted among elite athletes as was shapewear for women that trims and smoothes those stubborn bulges, but when he stood in front of the mirror he had one question — what about me?

“I was just beginning to show the signs of wear and tear. I had a pretty active 20s and 30s and maintained a great social life and played sport but I was just starting to turn the corner into middle age,” Jones, 43, a former journalist, told Reuters.

While women have quickly snapped into the increasing lines of shapewear, trebling sales in the past decade according to the market research NPD Group, Jones realized men wanted more than a male girdle or “mirdle” to trim the beer gut if they were to upgrade from their boxers or cotton briefs with fancy waistband.

Longer T-Shirts Keep Personal Assets Covered

Tired of crouching plumbers showing you a side of themselves you’d rather not see?

A Wisconsin apparel company says it’s here to help. In an effort to protect men from being the butt of fashion jokes, Belleville-based Duluth Trading Co. has been selling T-shirts that are three inches longer than standard shirts. The so-called “Longtail T” is meant to give guys a little extra coverage in the back.

The idea seems to have caught on. Duluth Trading said it’s on pace to sell its millionth Longtail T this month.

And to show that it means no offense, the company is offering all plumbers a free Longtail T-shirt on April 25.

Belleville is in southwest Wisconsin, about 20 miles south of Madison.

Ready For Prom With Gum Wrapper Dress

An Iowa teen is all bubbly over her one-of-a-kind high school prom dress she made out of gum wrappers.

Elizabeth Rasmuson made her dress — and matching vest for her date — out of blue and white wrappers from Wrigley’s “5 gum.” The high school junior says she got the idea after hearing about someone making a dress out of duct tape.

She and her boyfriend began collecting gum wrappers last August. Rasmuson says she quit counting after 200.

Since the wrappers break easily, Rasmuson finished her dress with a vinyl top coat.

Nearly Naked Anti-Fur Protesters Brave The Cold

Two nearly naked demonstrators from animal rights group PETA braved chilly temperatures to demonstrate in front of a Copenhagen fur store.

“We want to bring attention to the fashion industry … Fox and other animals are kept in cramped and filthy cages in fur farms before they are gassed, poisoned, suffocated or even electrocuted,” one of the activists, Virginia Fort of the United States, told AFP.

Fort and a colleague distributed tracts in the five-degree-Celsius (41 degree-Fahrenheit) weather, wearing just underpants and body paint to make them look like foxes without fur.

“Only animals should wear fur,” they shouted to passers-by, waving placards with the same message.

Denmark is the world’s leading producer and exporter of furs, holding about 40-45 percent of the global mink market, 60 percent of the chinchilla market and 10 percent of the fox market.

Mullet Place Is One Hot Address

The most frequently stolen street sign in Green Bay isn’t Lombardi Avenue, Reggie White Way or Brett Favre Pass.

The distinction goes to a short street on the city’s southwest side. Its name brings to mind the helmet-style haircut of the 1980s — the cut perhaps best personified by country music singer Billy Ray Cyrus and actor John Stamos.

Mullet Place has disappeared so many times city crews have moved it higher on the street pole and out of reach.

Public Works manager Chris Pirlot jokes that the sign thief is probably in the witness protection program and doesn’t want anyone to know where he lives — that or it’s someone still stuck in the ’80s.

Swiss Designer Creates Dinosaur Dung Watch

A Swiss watchmaker is hoping to raise a stink with an expensive timepiece that eschews the trade’s standard gold, diamond or titanium fittings for a more earthy substance — dinosaur dung.

Vesenaz, Switzerland-based company Artya says the watch set in fossilized feces will sell for 12,000 ($11,290) and comes with a strap made with skin from an American cane toad.

Designer Yvan Arpa said the coprolite came from a plant-eater that died about 100 million years ago in what is now the U.S.

AussieBum Men’s Underwear Goes Bananas

Australian underwear company AussieBum, maker of the Wonderjock, has been monkeying around and the result is a range of men’s underwear made with bananas.

The new eco-friendly banana range of undies incorporates 27 percent banana fibre, 64 percent cotton and 9 percent lycra, AussieBum’s Lloyd Jones said on Friday.

The banana fibre used in the underwear is made from a bark weave from the banana plant and makes the underwear not only lightweight, but also very absorbent, he said. “Naturally you can’t really add anymore banana fibre than that because it might be a bit squishy,” said Jones, adding that wearers did not have to worry about real monkeys, as the underwear does not smell like a banana.

Men Risk Anticlimax With Anatomy-Boosting Underwear

Hundreds of British men risked a Valentine’s Day anticlimax for their partners by stocking up on anatomy-boosting underpants ahead of the most romantic weekend of the year.

British department store group Debenhams said Thursday it had seen a 76 percent surge in online sales of the 18 pounds-a-pair ($28) underwear in the past week.

The pants work by using a lift and hold feature at the front, like a male version of the cleavage-boosting Wonderbra.

“The briefs mean that no man ever needs to feel inadequate again on the most passionate day of the social calendar,” said Rob Faucherand, head of men’s accessories buying at Debenhams.

“However we can’t be held responsible for what happens once the pants come off,” he added.

Judge Admonished After Ordering Attorney Paid With Coupons

A California judicial commission has admonished a retired judge for ordering that an attorney who settled a class-action lawsuit be paid in $10 coupons for women’s apparel.

The lawsuit accused Windsor Fashions Inc. of invading customers’ privacy by requesting personal information during credit card transactions.

As part of the January 2009 settlement, the company issued coupons to the plaintiffs, and Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Brett Klein ordered that the attorney fee of $125,000 be paid similarly.

The Commission on Judicial Performance, which disciplines state judges, said that Klein was biased and abusive. It also said he improperly communicated with the press by e-mailing his decision to a small newspaper.

Klein later rescinded his order to pay the attorney with coupons. He retired in November.