Oddity Central

Oddity Central

Textile Company Creates Men’s Shirt That Doesn’t Require Washing and Ironing

Posted: 02 May 2013 04:35 AM PDT

A shirt that can be worn for up to 100 days without having to be washed or ironed is the dream of many busy men around the world. Now, thanks to textile start-up Wool & Prince, this miracle shirt has become a reality.

Six months ago, Wool & Prince founder Mac Bishop and his friends Katie Elks and Mike Major set out to make a better, longer-lasting button-down shirt. They just weren’t satisfied with  the garments available on the market and decided to give men around the world an alternative that didn’t wrinkle and smell after a wear or two and didn’t require constant washing, dry-cleaning or ironing for long periods of time. After doing some research they discovered wool is 6 times more durable than cotton plus it naturally fights wrinkles and odors, without any added chemicals. With the help of 15 testers, the three young entrepreneurs developed their proprietary CottonSoft(TM) wool fabric that was light, breathable, durable and best of all soft. It was the perfect material they’d been searching for, but Mac wasn’t going to brag about its properties until he had the chance to test it out on himself. So he embarked on a 100-day challenge and wore the same magic wool shirt for 100 days straight, without washing or ironing it.

CottonSoft-shirt

The Wonderfully Artistic Tattoos of a French Skin Art Master

Posted: 02 May 2013 03:04 AM PDT

If you’re going to get a tattoo, why not go for something truly beautiful instead of the usual tribal, heart, dragon or those tacky Chinese characters that people seem to love so much. Five years ago, French tattoo master Xoïl aka Loïc adopted a new artsy style called the “Photoshop Style”, which really gives “skin art” a whole new meaning.

Xoïl was born in a very small village in Southern France, where his father worked as a mason, creating beautiful things out of stuff other people just threw away. Watching his father at work inspired him to leave the rural life behind and start making cool stuff himself. He never had a formal apprenticeship under a tattoo artist, because they all had these “old-school crazy ideas” he just didn’t recognize at the time, so he simply hung out at tattoo shops picking up the basics and developing his unique style. And it shows in his current artworks. Xoïl’s style is so distinct from other skin artists’ that you can recognize one of his pieces on sight. Combining clients’ ideas with stamp-like textures, typewriter-inspired fonts and geometric patterns, the French master creates incredibly beautiful works of permanent body art that have caught the attention of tattoo enthusiasts around Europe and the US.

Xoil-Photoshop-tattoos

Artist Creates Sculpture Smaller Than a Blood Cell on a Hair Stubble

Posted: 02 May 2013 01:42 AM PDT

Renowned microsculptor Willard Wigan MBE has created the world’s smallest ever work of art by carving a motorcycle on a hollowed-out hair stubble, by hand, in between his heartbeats. The tiny masterpiece measures just 3 microns and is only visible through a microscope.

55-year-old Willard Wigan MBE was already famous for his tiny pinhead sculptures, but he wanted “to go beyond human expectations” and “personally challenge himself” to create something even more amazing that the world hadn’t seen before. So one day, while brushing his face after a shave, he noticed a tiny hair stubble embedded in his fingerprint and decided that was going to be his new canvas. The Birmingham-based artist somehow managed to hollow out the hair fragment and armed with a special tool featuring microscopic diamond fragments he painstakingly sculpted a golden chopper motorcycle, working 16-hours a day for five weeks. Why would such a small work of art take so long to create, you ask? Willard explains that his microscopic chopper is smaller that a human blood cell and so fragile that even the pulse in his finger could have crushed it completely, so he was forced to work in between heartbeats.

Willard-Wigan-sculpture2

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