Secret lives of headless models

By Mir
March 15, 2006

Everyone has things that they do to relieve stress, right? Me, I like to shop. But you know, if I shopped as often as I was stressed, I would be broke. Broker than I already am, I mean. Also my already cluttered house would fill up with stuff, I suppose. Like many, many pairs of pointy-toed shoes.

So, I often go shopping and come home empty-handed. Just because. But on busy days, I cannot just go out shopping. I can, however, use my beloved internet to do some virtual shopping! Online! In my pajamas! GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Today I did a little online browsing at a store which I adore and may have also stolen borrowed some graphics from for the purposes of illustration. You know, the latest online retail craze is elaborate and irreverent descriptions to accompany items for sale. (Don’t know what I’m talking about? Check out woot! or Daily Zort.) I’d like to see that trend spread.

So this store I was browsing today, it not only likes to chop off the heads of the models, it just features some… interesting… body poses. My imagination started working overtime.

plain.jpgMy name is Jane. Plain Jane. I am just standing here, looking like a normal person except for that whole headless thing. Do you like my clavicle? It is pointy. I only wear teeny spaghetti straps to make sure everyone can see it. Oh, here comes my bus. Gotta go.

demure.jpgDid you know that if you put your hands behind your back, like this, that it totally makes you look all sweet and demure? Even if you’re basically wearing a negligee with your jeans? It’s true. I swear. If my head were in this photo, you’d be able to see my halo. Also, I’m pretty sure this makes my boobs look bigger.

hiboobs.jpgDon’t listen to her… you want to make your boobs look bigger? Wear SATIN. Look how shiny my tits are! Shiny! And ROUND! You should SEE the smirk on my face. I’m totally working the “Uh huh, that’s right, I know,” angle. Any second now I’m gonna lift that hand off my hip and SNAP.

longer.jpgCould someone please shut up Little Miss Satin Rack over there? Sheesh. She gets to wear THAT, and I’m stuck over here not only looking like my breasts have gone AWOL, but tugging at the bottom of this jacket to try to make it a little bit longer. I don’t want anyone to see my muffin top. Damn cropped jacket. Damn lowrise jeans. I hate my job.

pocket.jpgYou want a longer top? I’ll give you a longer top. Do you like it? DO YOU? Because I’m thinking my grandmother has a top exactly like this, except with shoulder pads. I’ll take a cropped jacket over a banded bottom any day. I had to jam my hand into my freaking pocket just to keep from decking the photographer.

stern.jpgWould you all please just be quiet?? Don’t make me come over there. I WILL come over there. Don’t you roll your eyes at me, young lady. Just because no one ELSE can see your head doesn’t mean I didn’t see that. What? You’re not sorry? If I have to come over there, I’ll give you something to be sorry ABOUT.

ouchback.jpgI don’t know, I was at yoga, and I was really opening up all my chakras during half moon, right? And then something in my back just SNAPPED. Like, ZING! So I’ve had, like, a bunch of Advil and a few Percodans, but it still really hurts. Also, why is there two of everyone? Was it always like that?

peace.jpgYou know, I went to Brown. I was an anthropology major. The irony of this moment is overwhelming, not that anyone here would understand that. Yes, I totally need to flash a peace sign because the hippy t-shirt with the pacifist design CLEARLY cannot stand on its own to make the proper statement. God, I hate you all.

hokeypokey.jpgYou put your left foot in, you take your left foot out….

Come on, now! Everybody join in! Who says a shoot has to be dull??

23 Comments

  1. ben

    Damn you and your DailyZort. Woot I knew about. Woot I can handle. I mean, all I have to do is stay up until midnite, every. damn. night, to see what’s for sale, and then not buy it. Or maybe buy it, depends. But now, there’s ANOTHER fun and irreverent way to buy crap I don’t need? The first thing I need to buy is a cloning machine so I can make another fool like me that will sit in front of the computer all day and guffaw at their descriptions.

    Speaking of which, your model descriptions are right on, except the one with her hands behind her back (were she a male) would be peeing.

    See, aren’t you glad you haven’t blocked me from commenting? yet?

  2. Patricia

    Not to take anything away from the soda flowing from my nose over your descriptions (which are far better than any store could do). However, in the interest in complete trivia (and if you win money on this — buy me something;)

    The reason the heads are cut off is that MANY catalog models will not consent to a release for the internet or they charge HUGE dollars for that kind of release. It seems the distribution is too big and the timeframe can be too long, which increases model rates.

    Go back to your regularly scheduled giggle. I’ll take my useless trivia elsewhere.

    Hugs

  3. Chaos

    Do you know how many items I had in my JCPenney.com and Speigel.com shopping cart today?? DO YOU? And I did not buy any of it. Damn internet. Unfortunately I did not have the clever insight to look at the models like you did. Damn, and to think of how much funner it actually could’ve been…

  4. mama speak

    I think you may have completely lost it. Funny, but completely out there. =)

  5. Sharkey

    When they stand there with those weird poses, I always wonder what’s wrong with the clothes. Like one sleeve is longer than the other, but if her hands are behind her back, you can’t tell.

    Have you seen Coldwater Creek’s site? No irreverent descriptions, but also no PEOPLE wearing the clothes. The clothes have human shapes, but there are no PEOPLE!

  6. shannon

    I am getting ready to revamp the site for the store I work at…hmmmm, inane and random words about things…I think I can do it! :)

    Oh, and I loved the names you saved the pictures under…hee hee. Couldn’t figure out “stem” though.

  7. Meg

    LOL, you crack me up!

    You’re really desperate to not think about sex, huh.

  8. Cele

    Dear Women’s Wear has nothing on you. Mir should be writing for the Daily Show or something, your talents (while we hang on your every word) as being sorely miss used.

  9. chris

    You are too funny.

    I wish they would use actual people with real muffin tops and back fat and show them doing things like bending down or sitting in the clothing. But I guess then no one would buy half the clothes.

  10. Chookooloonks

    Wow. You clearly need a date. Someone who can understand your strange fascination with headless people. Someone who years to hear you sing the theme song from “Fame.”

    I’m just sayin’. ;o)

  11. Jessie

    Ha! Also the last shirt? The orange one? Wow. It certainly is, um, ORANGE. Just, wow.

  12. Laenne

    OMG you had me in stitches! I could hear ’em talking, those damn headless models.

  13. ozma

    Thank you! This made me laugh. I’m having a non-funny day in every respect. I needed a laugh. My favorite is the ‘don’t make me come over there!’ one.

  14. Woman with Kids

    Damn! You are funny. I love clothing with attitude, but that may be more attitude than I could handle.

  15. Woman with Kids

    Damn! You are funny. I love clothing with attitude, but that may be more attitude than I could handle.

  16. The Other Leanne

    “Any second now I’m gonna lift that hand off my hip and SNAP”
    Oy, you got that one perfect!

    And the pacifist t-shirt? Dear girl, that is the logo from the movie “MASH,” which clearly plunks this little item smack into 1972.
    Okay, gotta go, the photographer is calling…

  17. Aimee

    Heeeeeeeee hee hee. You’re funny. I like the yoga one, especially.

  18. Alexa

    My god, that was the funniest thing I have read all day. Of course, it is only 11:45…but no, I am going to go right out on a limb and say that that is the funniest thing I WILL read all day. Go ahead and prove me wrong…

  19. Heather Cook

    Oh my GOSH you nearly made me snort my coffee… here I am, freshly whiplashed and in pain and YOU are making me laugh hard enough to snort.

    You rock.

  20. Cyndi

    OMG *holding my …muffin top, did you call it?…and wiping various fluids from my eyes, nose and mouth that have been leaked, snorted and spit in the last few minutes*

    Holy cow. You really should be writing for The Daily Show, or SNL or something. Those shows would be so much funnier with your input.

    Also? The Coldwater Creek “invisible” people are downright creepy, and now that I have “heard” the headless models talking, I can almost “see” these…gads. Losing it…I am losing it.

    That was hilarious.

  21. Jennifer

    The captions used to be the best part of catalog browsing way back in the dark ages, when I was but a child and my mother ordered catalogs because she couldn’t afford real magazines.

    J. Peterman would have loved you, yanno.

  22. Nothing But Bonfires

    Oh my god, that was hilarious. I feel that now would be an appropriate time to make a joke like “hey, no need to LOSE YOUR HEAD about it!’ or “that’s really not the way to GET AHEAD in catalogue modeling,” but….hmm, I guess I just did.

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