Good Job, Brain! - 11: Hey, Your Fly is Open

Episode Date: May 14, 2012

Remember when Hypercolor and acid-wash jeans were cool? Lots of laughs in this episode about ridiculous fashion trends and their origins. Learn about intriguing facts behind a simple pair of blue jeans, the bikini, powdered wigs, and more. ALSO: pop culture style quiz, new listener challenge, and impressive tricky geography trivia.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, perfectly pumped pub problem punchers. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 11, and of course, I'm your humble host, Karen. And along with me are our club of classy and clever clue-clinging cluckers. Wow. Wow. Be careful there at the end.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Would you be the mother-clucker? Oh, I would be the mother-mother-clucker. Well done. We're a very clucky bunch. I am Colin. Dana. And I'm Chris.

Woo. Hey. Really quickly, we have, I want to address our carry-over question from last week. And it was the riddle I wrote, which now in retrospect, I figured I could have edited that a little bit. And here it is, it is, 19th century is the time you seek for the great battle was fought on sea. Two sides against one fleet versus fleet. Name me the ships of double identity. I got actually a lot of answers for this one.

So it is my fault as the puzzle writer to not be clear. But what I was looking for is 19th century, there's the Battle of Trafalgar was fought in the early 1800s. And it was fought on scene, one of the big decisive battles. And it was two sides against one. It was the French and the Spanish kind of ganged up together versus the British. And name me the ship of double identity. So what I was looking for was there are two ships with the same name, each ship on both sides. One of them is Neptune.

Neptune, actually, there was a French Neptune. There was a Spanish Neptuno, and there was a British Neptune. And there was another pair, too, and it was Achilles. There was Achilles on the French and Spanish side, and there was Achilles on the British side. And the other answers I got include HMS Victory, which was also in Battle Chafalgar. There are a lot of ships that were renamed or rechristened as other name, hence there would be a double identity. But you know what? I accepted all of the answers in...

We select all the wizards. That was a hard one. It was hard. It was hard. That was tricky. I should have edited more a little bit. But the ultimate trivia nugget there is, yeah. So they, uh, multiple ships.

Multiple ships, same name. So they really were not very creative in ship naming back. I don't think so. Yeah. The victory. There, yeah, a lot of them are based on a Greek gods or, you know, that kind of the, the, the, the Roman lore, so a lot of repeated names. They need Don Draper on the job.

Yeah, they need a better marketing. The dream crusher. Yeah, if I were to name my own fleets of ships, they would have very funny names. I'd name my... The wind beneath my wings. Striking fear into the hearts of all of your naval enemies. I will make you cry. Congratulations to the winners.

So let's jump into our general trivia segment. Pop quiz, hot shot. everybody get your barnyard buzzers ready I got my random questions here and here we go Blue Wedge what nickname for the Santa Clara Valley was popularized in the 70s

Dana Silicon Valley Correct Santa Clara Valley Santa Clara Valley That's I'm gonna get in trouble for not getting that one Pink Wedge pop culture

The father of what actress Was the first westerner ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk. I'm going to guess Angelina Jolie. Incorrect. Father of what actress? I couldn't tell you.

It is Uma Thurman. Her father, Robert, gave up his robes in order to devote his life to academia. Didn't know that. That's a good one. Yellow Wedge. What is both an amphibian and the first name of the leader of the 1994 Republican Revolution? That would be Newt. Yes.

Gingrich, recently back in the news again. Purple Wedge, the disapproving father of what artist referred to her marriage to Diego Rivera as an elephant and a dove. Frieda Kahlo? Correct. Okay. And we have Green Wedge for science. If an animal is diurnal, what is it doing at midnight? It is sleeping.

Correct. Yes. Diurnal animals are active during the day. Yes, ma'am. Diurnal versus nocturnal. And the last question, orange wedge. What flavor was the original filling in Hostess Twinkies? Hmm.

Oh. Banana. Oh, my God. That is just pure trivia. Like, I just know it because I know it. Well, it makes sense. They're yellow, right? You know.

Yeah. Yep. So it was replaced by vanilla during a World War II banana shortage, which means they actually used real bananas. Wow. And didn't want it to not be bananas. They had to go. Yeah, they had to. They had to replace it with synthetic.

That was probably before the golden age of, yeah, of synthetic flavors. The golden age of... Well, you know, I mean, these days you want banana flavor. I bet you anything, there's no banana flavor. I'm not going to, you know, name any candies. Wow. Oh, I did not know that. All right, we have our backer question here.

This one is from Elisha Brown from North Haven, Maine. And her question is, when ICP first formed, ICP did not stand for insane clown posse. What did it actually stand for? It was for an internet communication protocol. The more Silicon Valley jokes. Incorrect. Though I'd be very impressed.

Ice cream party. You guys aren't even trying now. ICP stands for Inner City Posse. And Elisha here is a huge juggalo and a nerd. So, imparting some juggalo knowledge. Are there any casual juggalo? Right, right.

I have kind of a juggalo. Yeah, it's very binary. Yeah, right. You are or you aren't. It's true. Her favorite movie is Dirty Dancing. And she gets Swayzy crazy. I get Swayzy crazy too.

I want to see the Juggalo version of that movie. That would be awesome. Get to an internet. All right, everybody. Time for our topic of the week. And our topic of the week is not gross like last episode. We got some complaints about us being a... Oh, really?

A little bit, a little bit too descriptive. So we're going with something a little bit more broad this episode. And we're talking about fashion. Yes, yes. Fashion Frash in. I thought, hello, new shoes, by buying blues. Hey, I put some new shoes on and suddenly everything's right. I said, hey, I put some new shoes on and everybody's smiling.

It's so invited. Oh, short on my... And I want to start off asking you guys, I mean, we've done stupid things when we were younger, including wearing stupid things or being obsessed about pretty silly fashion trends. what were some of your personal favorites? By favorite, you mean... By favorite, you mean least favorite in retrospect. You mean embarrassing things that we put on our bodies?

Pictures that you don't show you. I'm going to go first because the only thing I can possibly think of is I never, ever, ever cared about fashion at all, anything. I would just wear whatever. I just didn't care. There is, however, a photograph of me in fourth grade with long hair, with like shoulder-length hair on an official school portrait on a laser background. You know how you get your portraits done with the lasers in the back?

And I did that. Wait, did you think it was cool? Yeah, hell yeah, I did. How long was it? Oh, it was like shoulder length, you know? So Hansen's style. But on a fourth grader. It looked bad.

It wasn't a mullet. But, yeah, Hanson style. If Hanson were fat. So cute. I want to see. The personal fashion with the hair, yeah, I mean, is different than the clothes. Like, at least the clothes, it's easier to rid yourself. of the embarrassing stuff.

I think for me, like the one that I would be most embarrassed if I saw photos of today would be 13, I guess, around there was we would really do the thing where you fold over the bottom of your jeans and you roll it up. Is it pegging?

Is that what it is? Or what do you call it? The jeans? I thought we were going to be less gross this time, Colleen. The thing, yeah, where you roll... It is called pegging. All right, yeah.

But yeah, so you roll up the bottom of the jeans and you have like, preferably the like the super high top, you know, white high tops, you know, below them. And so we would have just these rolled up jeans and they'd be like mid-ankle. I wore them, you know, my friends wore them.

It was what you did. That's so funny. We used to tuck our jeans, the bottom of our jeans, into our socks. And, like, you wear maybe three pairs of socks in different colors. That sounds so uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable. I was, unfortunately, a victim of skater and punk trends. And that included dyeing my hair, very crazy colors.

And, of course, Janco jeans. And they're, you've mentioned these before. Yes, Janko jeans, they're, they're like normal jeans, but the legs are huge. You can fit like a person. Yeah. I once actually got into detention because my pants were too ridiculous. They have a custom-made detention slip. Pants, comma, too ridiculous.

God, it's so embarrassing. And they're way bigger than your feet. Yeah, like you can fit like two other people. Into those pant legs, yeah. Well, we used to hide balls of booze. I was going to ask if that's what you did, because I know what kind of a kid you were. But when I was younger, and I know this was a fad in America, did seep into Asia. The fad was hyper-color T-shirts.

Do you guys remember that? Oh, I totally remember those. Was it what were, no matter what direction you looked at them, like they changed colors or? They're mostly T-shirts. The brand was genera. It's called genera hyper-color. And basically, it changes color based on body temperature. Oh.

Temperature. Do you remember that? Well, no. No, I don't. I remember these. I totally remember these. Yeah, I remember, yeah, in high school, I remember they came out. And it's like they're usually like pastely colors.

It was the 90s. Pistel was great. It'd be like pink, and then you would, you know, put your hand on it. And the warmth of your hand, you'd have a handprint and it'd become a different color. And they were kind of splotchy. I remember. They weren't like a solid color. I don't know if it was something in the dye process

But what I remember about those is You weren't supposed to wash them, right? There was something about them and like you can't put them in the dryer Oh, that's what I don't know what? Sorry, sorry, sorry, you couldn't put them in the dryer. Yeah, no, you know, yeah, you don't only wear it once And then throw it away Because the heat would destroy whatever

But people would put them in the dryer And then it would destroy them And then you would see these people with these like ruined hypercollar They're like splotchy And kind of weak color and just kind of looked like They spilled some yogurt on it or something Yeah, it looks like Or like washed out pen

like stains or something, actually read about how hypercolor t-shirt works. Obviously, we know it changes color based on temperature, but how do they, do they dye the whole shirt into chemicals, wouldn't that be dangerous? So it's actually really interesting. So the t-shirt that you see, the t-shirt color you see is the color of the shirt itself and the color of the dye. So the special dye, thermochromic dyes, they're encapsulated in really, really, really tiny, tiny microcapsules, and that's woven into the fabric. And so when you see a regular hypercolor t-shirt,

it's what you're seeing is the color of the dye and the color of the t-shirt. And so when temperature is applied to the dye, they become colorless. So the heated color you see is actually the real color of the shirt. Oh, wow. Oh, interesting. So, okay, it turns them off.

He deactivates the color. Got it. It's on the whole time. And they just were so ugly. I mean, I think we just convinced, no, I didn't own one, but I think people convinced themselves that, well, it's fashionable and high-tech, therefore it must be good-looking. I mean, kids don't know from ugly, though.

You know, they know what's popular and cool. Yep, yep, yep. Oh, speaking of popular and cool, but ugly in retrospect, I had a knock-off cross-color shirt. I don't know if you guys remember cross-colors from the early 90s. Yeah, yeah. It was like, one sleeve would be red. and the other sleeve would be yellow, and maybe the middle is green or something.

It was part of this whole consciousness raising for black youth in fashion, and like Fubu came out afterwards, but cross-color was so cool. It was like Afrocentric. It was Afrocentric. They had logos like stop devilance and educate to elevate. And it was, I mean, it's all positive and so expensive. So I had a knockoff version of a knockoff cross color. And like on the cover of TLC's first album.

They're all wearing cross-color outfits, and it was on In Living Color and Fresh Prince of Bel Air. It was the coolest. Were they actually really expensive? It was, yeah. I talked to my friends about it, my friends who also grew up with me, and like none of them owned cross-colors. So it's to inspire confidence in rich black children. Right. It's really for...

It's like, it's okay. You're rich. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, talking about jeans in terms of the embarrassing, my embarrassing fashion that I wish I could erase. Did you have acid wash jeans? I did have acid wash jeans. I did you do it yourself. No, I never, I don't think I had the confidence to do action.

I wouldn't think I would know even how to do that. Bleach. I guess, but it just seemed so, so hard to control. It's all like white by the crotch area. Yeah, you know, honestly, it was worth it to me to just pay the department store. But no, I did have acid wash jeans, and those were embarrassing enough. But imagine with the rolled cuffs at the bottom. Oh, man, so cool.

So cool. My older sister, I remember when I was when I was, really young. My older sister was all, you know, about acid-washed jeans, and she tried to do it herself. Oh, no. And it's basically, you take a pair of jeans or whatever denim clothing, a nice jacket, perhaps, and you have bleach, and you splatter bleach all around. But the thing is, I mean, I don't think she kind of understood the chemical process of it. Bleach, like, eats away at a thabber. Yeah, not just takes the color. Yeah. So eventually the white cool splotches become whole. holes because they're like eroding.

Yeah, yeah. It totally weakens the fabric. That was the fashion too, though, to have them all. That is true. So, you know, I mean, we all know, obviously the father of blue jeans is Levi Strauss. You know, certainly everyone recognizes him as, and, you know, rightly so. So, you know, I mean, I knew sort of bits and pieces of the story, but kind of just was looking a little bit more into sort of how he actually got into the business of making blue jeans.

And it's pretty fascinating. So it's, you know, like a lot of other things, he kind of got his start. in the gold rush. So, you know, he was an immigrant family and they had a good store in New York City and he sort of came out to San Francisco at the height of the gold rush. He brought the fabric out his really high quality cotton denim, really, a denim or a twill. For tents was the main reason that he brought the fabric out was for tent making, uh, for a lot of people just making encampments in the gold rush. But he kind of found out eventually that he was selling a lot more of it made into pants and overalls and things like that. And that sort of became the direction that he went

with it so much better than the frilly skirts that most old ones yes but i i tell you the freedom of a denim skirt there's nothing it's so airy and breezy sorry i guess it would be a kilt you know painting for gold makes you hot you got a squat yeah um you do have to squat and in fact so one of the one of the really interesting problems that uh you know the early pants faces they would wear out really easily yeah so levi strass's partner who he worked with was a man in jacob davis and he was out of Reno and so he was the tailor who really kind of crafted a lot of the pants and he hit upon the idea the very first time of using metal reinforcements to hold together the seams and you know of course levies today are well known for the little copper rivets so he had the

idea of using the metal reinforcements and he said to levi strass basically like you know hey i i need a business partner help me let's develop this together you've got the fabric i buy a lot of my fabric from you i've got this idea let's make it work and so they did so they together came up with the patent. They reissued a patent on the little copper rivets that hold together the seams on Levi's. Proceeded to make a fortune selling Levi's jeans. I feel bad for him because he didn't get his name onto the brand. Well, they were on the patent, certainly. And he brought him in as a business partner. I think it was more like, I've got this idea. I need someone to help market it. You know, I don't think there was any ill will or anything like that. Oh, good. Yeah. So, you know,

really, and then they made it killing, selling them to gold miners and people just sort of booming in the area around San Francisco. A lot of good interesting trivia around Levi's and Blue Jins in particular. So you guys know the classic little double arch on the back pockets of Levi's. So the inverted arch. That is a name. It is the Arcuet design, A-R-C-U-A-T-E. And it actually is trademark. Is it functional? No, it's decorative, but it is a registered trademark of Levi's. They are the only ones legally allowed to put that design on the backpockets, and they fiercely defend it as their registered trademark.

How did they get the name? I think, you know, probably some person in the marketing department at Revisedras came up with the Arcuet. They were drunk and passed out underneath McDonald's sign. Yeah, right. Clearly it's based on the arc, yeah. During World War II, you know, we were talking about shortages and things in World War II. You know, the government really placed a lot of restrictions on things that you couldn't do. And anything that was not...

Can't put bananas in these jeans. Anything that was not, that was either not available or not essential to saving and conservation of raw resources. So the government said to Levi's, this is all true. The government said to Levi's, well, the thread that you're using on the double arc design is decorative. It's not any part of the structure of the genes. It's got to come off. No using it for the duration of the ban on it. I mean, this is the level that they were conservative resources.

So during World War II, during this period, rather than risk losing their trademark, the arcs were painted on. So if you've got a pair of Levi's with painted on arcuate designs on the back pockets, you've got yourself a pretty rare item there from the limited period where they weren't made with the actual sewn in thread. Weren't they wasting paint, though? I imagine that paint in terms of cotton was probably something they could get their hands on a lot easier. Wow. Yeah.

So the other thing, too, is that back in those days, they didn't really call them jeans. We call them jeans now, but that's really a relatively modern term. I mean, that's more of like a 20th century term. I mean, they would have called them denim pants or denim trousers or denim overalls. Do you guys know where the term denim comes from? This is a good pub trivia one. I believe it came from a city. Correct.

But I forgot where. Correct. Correct. You're absolutely right. Is it the city of... Is it French? Yeah, that's absolutely right. So from Neme, France. So the fabric that he used was a very specific...

Of Neme. ...a type of surge. It was a very specific type of fabric called a surge, S-E-R-G-E. So it was known... Like the soda. It was known as surge. De Neme, Serge from Nime, France. Okay, then where did jeans come from?

So, jeans, and it's really interesting how these two names kind of converge together. So jeans come from a specific type of fabric that was really traced back to Genoa, Italy. And genes come, the root is, meaning of Genoa. We get it from the French word genus, like fabric of Genoa. So this type of very heavy cotton woven fabric was popular in Genoa for sales, because it was so durable and ultimately sort of evolved into being used for durable clothing as well. And so the type of clothes made from that fabric eventually adopted the name jeans. So, man, when we say denim jeans, we're referencing a city in France and then a city in Italy.

Yeah, you're very worldly when you're talking about your blue jeans. And so then the surge denim that was dyed indigo, you know, would frequently be used to make the kind of jeans, the denim pants and denim overalls that we now associate with Levi's. I wonder why blue is such a predominant gene. color. It's the cheapest dye. Oh, is it? It was readily available. Yeah, I mean, even though historically, you know, way, way back, it was really rare. But yeah, at the time they were producing these, it was readily available. And, you know, it was really dark and durable. It was just great for utilitarian clothes, which is what, you know, blue jeans really were until the 50s.

I guess you wouldn't want a light color when you're working. Yeah. It would look dirty and gross. Yep. Yep. That's right. That's right. Yeah. So so much, yeah, worldly interesting history baked out in Wow, on a simple pair of jeans. Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, so as I say, I mean, you know, really up until the 50s, until, you know, James Dean and Rebel Without a Cause, it was, you know, they were utilitarian or working class or workers, they were workers clothing. So this actually relates to a quiz I have prepared. All right. And this fashion quiz, it's a little bit different.

I'm going to name the item of clothing. And you have to name me what pop culture reference made it popular. Oh, okay. All right, we'll try. So an example would be, you know, I would say a pair of black and white checkered vans, and wear was made popular by in a pop culture reference would be... Fast Times at Richmond High? Correct.

Okay, all right. I see what you're getting out. Okay, all right, all right. Rayban Wayfarer's sunglasses. CSI. I'm going to say risky business. Correct. risky business

Tom Cruise As Joel Those pair of sunglasses are officially called Wayfarers Very, very popular I used to have a pair again in high school

I thought they were so cool They still are cool Yeah Okay another Rayban question Rayban aviator sunglasses Is it Top Gun? Correct Tom Cruise again

with Top Gun Rayban just sends checks directly to Tom Cruise's house This fashion item is from the 80s leg warmers. Flash dance? Correct.

Flash dance. The little black dress. Oh, I know this, but I forgot it. Breakfast at Tiffany's? Correct. Breakfast at Tiffany's. That was a little bit of a shot in the dark,

but I can just, yeah, picture her. I'd heard this before, yeah. The black leather jacket. James Dean. Correct. Rubble without a collar. Wow, jeans and the black leather jacket, man. Giorgio Armani.

Oh, Miami Vice? Incorrect. It's Richard Gear from American Gigolo. Giorgio Armani designed all of his clothes, and that made a very big statement. The whole Italian menswear designer kind of craze got big in the early 80s and so forth. Everybody wanted to look like a gigolo? American jigalos I also know

Yeah Made in America With the best jigalos on the planet We'll put our jigalos up against Any jigolo anywhere in the world Our jigalos against your juggaloes any day and week Yeah we have juggalo jigilos Only in America

Okay this is a really weird one The fashion item is actually not wearing a fashion item And is not wearing an undershirt So starting a trend of Not wearing undershirt for men. I'm not wearing one now, so whatever it was, I must be following it. I don't, I'm going to guess like some, I don't know, farm laborer movie or some, I don't know, I have no guess. No, so in the 1934, it happened one night.

Clark Gable, there was a scene where he took off his shirt shirt, and he wasn't wearing an undershirt. And people freaked out, but in a good way, they're like, whoa, you don't have to. to wear an undershirt. Clark Gable can go without. If he can show his chest, then my chest shouldn't be covered by an undershirt. Liberating my male chest, just like Clark Gable. Millions of housewives at the moment, like, oh, no. Or, oh, yes.

Honey, you're not Clark Gable. Let them loose. I can see through your shirt. And actually, the sales, undershirt sales actually plummet. because of that movie because all these men are like what I don't have to wear a shirt if I don't want to I'm an adult that's really interesting just like Clark Gable just yeah that's really interesting and it actually that the sales actually didn't really recover until rebel without a cause oh okay okay James Dean sported his wow under shirt so he's got the

trifecta there he's got the black jacket the the white undershirt and blue jeans wow man a whole look and yeah so now you guys learned something I did. Actually, so in doing research for this, interestingly enough, I started coming across, like, fashion, because I don't, I know nothing about fashion, so I'm like, where am I going to start? So I started looking at, like, fashion trends that originated with specific people. And so, like, there were, James Dean. Yeah, it's always James Dean. One of the, one of the people who actually started two things, or, you know, again, when we say started being popularized or caused a run on was Farrah Fawcett, right, 1970s television star and model and things. fashion idol who, A, popularized the Farah-style haircut, remarkably feathered, long, blonde look that looks like she just rolled out of bed. Yeah, very 70s, but like when you start thinking about it, it's like,

wow, that must be really difficult to deal with all those pieces and perfect, like, all in perfect place, but moving. A symphony of hair. But also, I had read that, in fact, she had brought back the one piece, because of that world famous poster of her. Oh, right. That one-piece bathing suit, the red bathing suit. Apparently, the world's best-selling poster ever.

I think I heard that. Really? Is that iconic shot of her, apparently a very cold studio. Wearing a one-piece bathing suit, which actually sort of caused the one-piece bathing suit to become more popular than the bikini. But then also, we're looking at haircuts named after people, you know, if you wanted to get the fairer haircut. There was also in the 1990s, maybe you ladies remember this. The Rachel. This passed without notice for me.

I remember the Rachel. Well, that's because you had a bob. You should have gone for the Rachel. Yeah, I know exactly. I'll play dumb, though. What's the Rachel? The Rachel, I don't even know how to describe it. It is a woman's haircut.

It is a medium length. This is so entertaining. I listen to you, describe this. You guys can, I'll try first, and then you guys can tell me how you would actually describe it. But it's almost. like you're wearing a space helmet and it's like the hair is all and it looks like um a white woman wearing like very dainty dreadlocks because the hair is all kind of pieced out into these pieces uh and i'm going i'm like i'm making a space helmet around my head as i'm saying as i'm telling

this and there's like but there's but it's crazy like there's highlights and low lights like there's like there's you know really highlighted areas towards the front and really dark towards the you know towards towards the back and and by rachel it's rachel from france right yes rachel the character from Friends. Jennifer Aniston. When they started this show, they gave her this haircut, and the show became so popular that people all wanted to copy this haircut and get the Rachel. I cannot believe you've never heard.

Never heard of it. Secretly, Jennifer Aniston hated this haircut. Hated. But she was stuck with it. Was stuck with it. But they finally changed it later on in the show after a couple of seasons, but she really, really, really disliked it. And, of course, it becomes this huge thing.

How would you describe it? It would be like a long, shaggy, layered bob. Yes, exactly. Okay. That's exactly how I'm a disguised it. Okay. Not like bigy deadlocks. Spot on.

Not a space helmet of dainty dreadlocks. If you look at pictures of it, it's like the hair is in like these longish pieces coming down. Like I don't want to say dreadlocks because clearly Jennifer Anderson washed her hair. I'm saying that that's sort of in these like individual bits. So just a heads up, if you're playing draw something with Chris and you see a space helmet made of dainty dreadlocks, the answer is Rachel. Absolutely. Oh, boys. Describe something else for us.

It's a spin-off. I think we have a spin-off podcast here. It's just Chris describing things for an hour. Get to Toronto's main venues like Budweiser Stage and the new Roger Stadium with Go Transit. Thanks to Go Transit's special online e-ticket fairs, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday anywhere along the go network. And the weekday group passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility across the network, starting at $30 for two people and up to $60 for a group of five. Buy your online go pass ahead of the show at go-transit.com

slash tickets. No frills, delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five or. orders. Shop now at no-frails.ca. Yeah, well, so it's funny that you mentioned swimsuit and Farah Fawcett kind of triggering, you know, a move away from the two-piece. Wait, so if, if, so she brought back the one piece. What was popular before?

The two-piece? I did a little bit of digging into this, actually. You know, I took the burden upon myself to look at photos of bikinis on the internet. Oh, Colin, thank you. For the greater good. What a hero. I took one for the team, so you guys don't have to. But, yeah, I mean, the bikini really.

I did anyway. I knew you were doing it. Didn't stop. The bikini is, I guess, strictly speaking, a subset of the two-piece bathing suit family. So two-piece bathing suits have been around. This will be interesting to listen. You describe female fashions as well. Luckily, it's pretty simple, right? It's just a bunch of triangles over.

It's just a bunch of triangles. Strategically arranged triangles. Pretend you're an alien and then cover it. That's all I have, actually. That's all I found. I just looked at a bunch of hair. So, guys... As it turns out, the bikini is a bathing suit in two pieces.

Trivia. But this one really does have a really interesting history to it. And I think, you know... Really, doesn't it? But trivia, we probably, a lot of people know that the bikini, like, it took its name from Bikini Atoll. So Bikini Atoll was a... And Atoll is like a little coral ring island. Is it Atoll or Atoll?

You know, I don't know. I always heard of Atoll, but I'm sure, you know. I have no idea what it is. A-T-O-L-L. So it's essentially, we're getting a little bit of geography here. So it's like a coral island that contains a body of water, basically. It's like a ring out of coral with like a, you know. Like a swimming pool.

Like a nature swimming pool. Yeah, or like a lagoon in the middle. Right. So bikini atoll is a group of these out, out in the South Pacific. It's part of the Marshall Islands. But the U.S. did a lot of atomic testing there. Oh. Yes.

And so they vary publicly. detonated two fish and bombs there, and it was very public. It was the first atomic testing of any kind since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So it was, it caught a lot of attention. And according to the legend, the woman was standing in the last radius. Right, right.

It blasted off all of her swimsuit, except for top and the bottom. But, no, so that is the... And she's... And she died. But the swimsuit lives on. Yes, everybody else is very rich.

Yeah. But that's the namesake of the bikini. But the true story of how it was invented, it gets even more interesting. So it is a French invention. It was designed. Of course. But it was designed by Louis Reyard, who was a French engineer. That's right.

Okay. I said engineer. He was a French automobile engineer by training. But his mother apparently owned a fashion shop. This story is getting weird. A lingerie. A lingerie store and shoe store in Paris. So he was running, you know, his mother's lingerie store in the,

40s and he he eventually got into a sort of a design competition with a rival designer and they were competing to see who could make the smallest swimsuit possible so yeah of course two french men of course would be yeah um but so that you know the two piece wasn't new so they started with the two piece and just subtracting right subtracting fabric subtracting fabric so his rival was a man named jacques heim and his first his came first actually he came out with a super, super stumpy two-piece, and he called it the atom, the atom. Reyard, you know, not to be out done shortly thereafter, came out with his design, which he was, I guess, really the first one would come up with the idea of, like, the string bikini. So it's like, get rid of as much

fabric as possible. And literally, triangles of cloth with strings connecting them. So his was smaller, and he named it the bikini, because he debuted just four days after these atomic experiments in Bikini Antole. That was kind of dark. Weird. So some people have sort of Riley noted, well, you know, the bikini split the atom, the at home, the previous design. I think that's maybe a little too clever. But I think, you know, he was just grabbing something that was in the news and was sensational. I thought I had to do something with bombshells because of dropping the bombs on bikini. Nope. He just thought the name would really be grabbed people's attention. And it was kind of scandalous. Like at first he couldn't get models to wear it because it was so skimpy.

He had to hire a nude model, a woman who is known for nude modeling to wear it at the first sort of fashion exposition in Paris to publicize it. So even though Himes was first, Ray Ards was second, and bikini at that point just became the name for that type of swimsuit. But, you know, he really, he was a good marketer. He, you know, he insisted, like, it's not a real bikini. And these are his words. It's not a real bikini unless it could be pulled through a wedding ring. Oh, yeah. I heard that. I want to, like, just imagine the scenario. Like, how French is that? Again, it's like you're, you're creating a scenario now where, well I've got to take off my wedding ring

and you've got to take off your bikini to see if it's real oh my god that is that's good brilliant it's good but very sleazy it was the 40s a lot of people actually have been asking us questions like hey guys can you like document where you get your information from and you know like where do you guys

read all this stuff and and the answer really is everywhere and nowhere like you know we Wikipedia well you know Wikipedia is always a good starting place but I always try to get, you know, multiple documented sources for everything. Yeah. In this particular case, I came across one particular article that I wanted to talk about. I thought it was, it was very germane to the discussion, very funnily written.

It's called Six Popular Fashion Trends that Kill People. It's by Alice Hester Jones, and it's at Cracked.com. Okay. It's a really very funny piece. You should go back and do it. And it's just, it's six crazy historical fashion trends. And one of the ones that I had not heard about was that in the 19th century, men would wear these very, very high collars. You've probably

seen pictures of men wearing super, super, super starched collars. Yeah, they're called bros, right? Yeah, she makes a joke about that. Yes, right, yeah, the super high collars. And they would come up your neck, basically. And as the writer put it, these things were starched until they were almost bulletproof and jutted right up into your windpipe. What could go wrong? In fact, they actually

called these things in several European languages, they called it the Votter Mortar or Father Killer. Because, like, people would die. Somebody almost killed himself on this thing, almost guillotined on it when he tripped coming out of a streetcar because he fell and the thing just went up into his neck because it's just like, it's this very thin piece of cloth that's been starched, so it stands up and it's just like a giant paper cut. And also, if you fell asleep while drunk, like if you were just, like, if you were just, like,

If you just fell, if you were just sitting up against a wall and fell asleep and your head slump forward, go up into your windpipe and cut off slowly cut off your oxygen and you would just die, you would just fix you. Maybe you'd throw up on it before that and like take out some of the starch. No, save you. But why. Pro tip. Why did people, why did people wear these? Because it looked at. Fashion.

I mean, why did it? That was the fashion. It was the style. You wore this, you know, very elegant looking high collar around your neck. It made you look like an aristocrat. It makes you look like an aristocrat. Yeah, you look very macho. Death come for me.

I've blades around like that. There was also the crinolin, which I always thought was a type of fabric because I don't know anything about fashion. As we've now proven many, many times we've worked with podcasts. And it was, but what the crinolin actually was was a metal hoop skirt worn onto a skirt. So you wear this metal cage basically looking like a bell on your legs. Like a bird cage. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, you know, the skirt would just sit on that.

So you'd have this naturally very big, billowy skirt that's sort of perfectly bell-shaped around you. And it's huge. Because there's a huge metal cage. Right. And it's like the image of like the classic Southern Bell or the Victorian. Yeah, exactly. The Victorian hoops or whatever. Right.

The problem, of course, is that you're basically wearing a hang glider. And that if you were, if you, let's say in this typical scenario, you're standing on the pier, waving your handkerchief goodbye at a ship. And suddenly a gust of wind picks you up and carries you out into sea and dumps you in the water. Well, guess what? You're attached to an iron cage and you die. You're wearing tons of fabric, too. They're soaking wet.

But yes, Alice Hester-Jones, a very, very funny article on Crack about killer fashion trends. The things we do for fashion. Oh, speaking of like those big dresses, that was the weird fashion for women then, or the day. dangerous and kind of strange fashion for women, but men wore those big powdered wigs. Did you know what they're called? Do you know what the technical name is? It's not powdered wig? Well, you could call it that.

But there are two other names that both begin with P. There are fun words, actually. Go on. One is perukes. Perukes. How's that spelled? P-E-R-U-K-E-S. Oh, that's a good crossword or gravel word.

Perukes. Or peri-wig. Oh, I've heard Perrywigs. It reminds me of a periwinkle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so a peri wig or a peruk is a powdered wig. They were in fashion for over 100 years, and when they went out of fashion, it was because the English government started imposing a tax on it, kind of a high tax on it, and then people

were like, oh, never mind it. It's not worth it. It's not worth it. It's cool. I don't mind if it kills me, but if it costs me more money, forget it. Just for the powder for the wings. All right. Well, I have a little quiz prepared here.

Awesome. That has nothing gruesome or gross in it. at all. So we'll switch it up here a little bit. So this is sort of a geography and world information kind of quiz. Nothing too hard. There's no trick questions, but there are a couple that are tricky. If you start off in downtown, Detroit, Michigan, and you head due south, what's the first foreign country that you're going to hit?

Chris. Mexico. Incorrect. I think that was Dana. Guatemala? Incorrect. Karen? Cuba. Incorrect.

What is it? It is Canada. Wait. Canada curves underneath that part of Michigan. So if you start in downtown Detroit and head due south, you're going to hit Windsor, Ontario, and Canada. Fascinating. Oh, no. Directly across the Detroit River.

Yes. All of our Detroit listeners, I know you guys got that one. Oh, what? That is tricky. That's a fun one. Yeah. Death Valley here in California has the lowest surface elevation in the continental U.S. 282 feet below sea level.

What state has the highest point? What state has the high... That was Karen. Yeah. Colorado. Incorrect. What? It's called the mile high state.

Chris. Alaska. It is Alaska. Mount McKinley has the highest. But even if you didn't include Alaska, it still wouldn't be Colorado. It would be California. California has both the highest and the lowest points in the continental U.S. Huh.

This landlocked, South. American country once had a coastline, but lost its coastline in 1904. What country is this? Lost it through political reasons rather than natural disaster or something. Karen, Paraguay. No, not Paraguay. Chris. Uruguay. It is not Uruguay. It is Bolivia. Oh, the one in the middle. Bolivia right there on the western coast of South America, yeah, between Chile and Peru, right? That little area of coast has been hotly contested over the years.

What country has the longest coastline in the world? This is a good pub quiz one. We may even have had this one before. You're absolutely right. What country has the longest coastline in the world? Dana. It is Canada because of all the little island and coastlines. And if you look at Canada on the map, it's such a convoluted coastline.

Yes, it is, yeah, over 120. 25,000 mile long coastline, Canada. What is the smallest sovereign state in the world? Dana. Is it Vatican City? It is Vatican City. Yes. Vatican City.

The smallest state in terms of area, also the smallest population. Only about 800 permanent residents in the Vatican. So what technically counts as a sovereign state? It's self-governing, self-regulating. It's not a property or a territory of any other country. It's recognized, most importantly, it's recognized by other world nations. What are some other ones? I mean, anything is a sovereign state.

I mean, you know, I mean, it's like Singapore would be like a city state or things like that. Yeah, I mean, so it is just tiny. It's 0.17 square miles. So just to put that in perspective, Central Park, Central Park is about seven and a half times bigger than Vatican City. Wow. Yeah, it is tiny. what is the only country that does not have a rectangular national flag oh so not a square or a rectangle my god i didn't know that was even okay yes but i guess if they're sovereign they can

make it whatever they want that's right just to just to annoy the other countries yeah i think karen's working on it i'm time is running out not a rectangle not not a rectangle or a square there are some countries that have squares it's not rectangular squares yes right so it's going to be like a like a pennant, like a triangle? Yes, yes. Oh, wait, it's a country, you said? It is a country, yes. Oh, um, are a lot of mountains in this country? Tibet. Close. Oh, Nepal?

Nepal. Yes, Nepal. They have a double triangular flag. That's right. The only country whose national flag is not rectangular. All right, we'll close out here. We have a couple time zone questions here. Oh, I hate these. How many time zones are there in mainland China? Karen. Eight. incorrect Chris seven

incorrect there is one time zone in China the entire country since 1949 the communist party has standardized it the entire country I mean think how efficient that is

think how efficient that is quote normally they would span about five time zones in terms of what we normally consider time zones but they have one time zone for all of mainland China so just imagine the difference in daylight there from one end to the other. Wow. That was a good question.

You get a bit nude and it's dark. Right, right, right. Close it out here. What country has the most time zones? Not China. Not China. That's right. Is it the United States? It is not the United States. We're very close though. Chris. Canada. It is not. For a change it is not Canada.

Oh, man. Karen. Antarctica. It is not Antarctica. They actually don't count that as a separate country. And Arnica would have infinite time. This one really blew me away. It is France. Huh. What?

Because it includes things like dependent territories. So things like French Polynesia and Martinique and French Guyana are considered France. So that covers, so France actually has 12 time zones. Now, in the more traditional sense, even if you feel that's kind of a cheating answer, Russia. Russia has the most contingent. ambiguous time zones. So, and the U.S. has 11, if you count our territories as well. Oh, these are good.

Those are good, yeah. So that's what I have. So a little geo knowledge there. Good quiz. And we also, it's almost time for us to go, but we have one more carryover challenge, courtesy of Chris Culler, Mr. Fashion. Yes, Mr. Fashion, absolutely. So here's the thing.

Here is, here are three odd phrases. All right. That I'm going to read to you. All right. The first is Coach Clone. Uh-huh. The second is

10 Dior bags never fun. Okay. And the third, well, and the third is Ray unties LNA vest. Ray unties LNA vest.

Ray, like the name. The name Ray. A guy Ray, untying a vest made by the fashion house LNA. Okay. Ray unties LNA vest. Each of these

odd phrases, you have probably noticed, contains the name of a popular fashion house. We have coach clone, 10 Dior bags, never fun, and rantized L&A Best. These phrases are also anagrams of the names of fashion designers. Separate fashion designers. Yes. They are three separate anagrams that are the names of three separate fashion designers. Name the three fashion designers. And that is your challenge for next week.

Wow. Email us the three fashion designers. to jb.podcast at gmail.com And we'll select a couple random winners from the correct answer pile and we'll send you some swag. Yeah. Cool.

Swag, swag, swag, swag. All right, that's the end of our show. Thank you guys for joining me and thank you guys, the listeners, for listening. Hope you guys learn something interesting about fashion and also geography that was actually really, really fascinating. And you can find us on Zoom Marketplace

on iTunes and also, on our website, which is goodjobbrain.com. And we'll see you next week. Bye. Bye. Daily brings you the top trending weather-related story of the day, seven days a week. You can learn a lot in just a few minutes with stories about impending hurricanes, winter storms, or even what not to miss in the night sky. So listen and subscribe to AcuWeather Daily, wherever you get your podcasts.

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