VARIATIONS ON BIKINI/BURQINI

Now that the weather's turned a little on the chilly side, it's time to rug up in something glamorous like the above outfit designed and modeled by Aheda Zanetti who invented the Burqini.

The Burqini (centre) was created to assist Muslim women who desire to be lifesavers or simply just enjoy the beach and is her answer to the bikini, consisting of a full length lycra suite with hijab head-covering. The outfit is not dissimilar to the stinger suit (top) one must wear snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef to protect oneself from fatal box jelly fish stings only baggier.

All outfits are also brilliant for summer too, to protect pale skin from the deadly uv rays.

http://www.womengateway.com/enwg/Women+Issues/burgini.htm

GREEN FINS

How super stoked am I to be testing out a prototype set of these new Green Flex Fins???

And I'm especially chuffed to have played a small role in their inception. Back in August 2005, I was hosting DFactory, a monthly design forum at the Powerhouse Museum, and one of our guests was the Global Marketing and Product Development Manager of Surf Hardware International, a company that had taken out that year's Australian Design Award with the H-2 surfboard fin.

Contact was made at the event with another DFactory guest from InterfaceFLOR, a carpet manufacturing company that aims to eliminate any negative impact that it may have on the environment by 2020. Together these companies have been working on extracting the nylon component from old carpets and using the resin-like material to make fins, diverting heaps of junk from landfills in the process.

While still in the trial phase, these Green Flex Fins are feeling mighty fine in my boards. Check out this link for more info:

http://www.surffcs.com/green/