Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Tennis Corset

Not only is this an awful name for a nail polish, but it is also one of the worst ideas for a piece of clothing I have ever heard (with the possible exception of foot-binding marathon shoes). Tennis is a game in which participants are expected to run around the court quickly. A corset is a device that inhibits you from breathing and will make you pass out if you try to run or bend over. It does not seem like a (game, set, or) match made in heaven. Maybe if you are so figure-conscious that you cannot leave the house without your corset even to exercise, public sports are not for you. It's OK; they invented Wii Tennis for a reason.

Also, the elitism of tennis combined with the Victorianism of corsets makes me suspicious of the kind of people who would wear this.

"Lady Thistlethorpe! What a pleasure to see you again! You are looking delightfully frail and delicate today."

Lady Thistlethorpe, with great effort, manages to breathe deeply enough through her tennis corset to raise her racket in greeting.

"Oh, Sir Caddington, you do know how to flatter a woman. Have you had any luck engaging a new upstairs parlor maid for Stuffybritches Manor?"

The tennis ball passes seven inches from Lady Thistlethorpe's gracefully outstretched arm and sails into Sir Caddington's monocle, cracking it in half.

"Alas, no. We thought we had found one at last, but she turned out to be a dirty papist. Caught her with those grubby little fingers on a rosary."

The ball speeds at Lady Thistlethorpe. She takes one step toward it on her tennis high heels, totters, and crashes to the ground. Sir Caddington nods his head approvingly.

"Damned fine woman, I've always said. Jeeves! Smelling salts!"

10 comments:

  1. Poor Lady Thistlethorpe! Too bad there wasn't a fainting couch handy.

    This Victorianesque name choice is especially perplexing given that Essie apparently started by business by heading over to Las Vegas and "peddling" her polish, non? (I have no idea why I went and read their website just now. Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be grading.)

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  2. Ooh, my verification was "essine"! Maybe Essie is haunting us!

    Quick, grab your glitter top hat and let's dance-fight her!

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  3. Hi, just me again. A small clarification: that first one should have said "Essie started HER business." Not "by business by," which is clearly nonsensical.

    Like much of what I say...

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  4. I agree, Ink! I like a lot of Essie's names, but this is just puzzling coming from someone who named a nail polish "After Sex" (changed to "After Six" in the uptight Southern market).

    Essie, quit your haunting, or we will shuffle ball-change you all the way back to Vegas!

    P.S. Do you think there is a way of combining the elegance of a hurkie with the razzmatazz of a shuffle ball-change?

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  5. I have always wondered about this name. I had assumed it was some sort of sport-related pun that I just wasn't understanding... But... no... It's just a stupid name! LOL

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  6. Scrangie--that's what I thought at first, too. I was convinced that it must have been some legitimate article of clothing that I wasn't WASPy enough to know about. But a lengthy and rigorous Google search reveals that this nail polish is the primary hit, and that the only actual articles of related clothing are (1) some hideous shirt Venus (?) Williams wore once and called a corset, and (2) actual tennis corsets that masochistic women wore a hundred years ago, as well as even worse ideas like bathing corsets!

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  7. Ok, I'm trying to choreograph a herky/shuffle-ball-change combo and it keeps looking like a hot spazzy mess. Then again, it might actually be, um, fashion-forward. (Since any explanation on Project Runway involves that phrase, I decided to insert that whenever words fail me.)

    True story: my word verification is lesse! (Essie, stop it!)

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  8. Am I the only one having "A Room With A view" flashbacks? Wait, I probably am the only one huffing nail polish as I read this, so maybe...

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  9. I just saw Dr. No's comment--and yes! That is exactly what I imagined when I first saw the title (the tennis game, not Dr. No huffing nail polish).

    Merchant-Ivory forever!

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  10. tennis fan howling with laughter at this

    "foot-binding marathon shoes"

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