Sounds like a stupid question doesn’t it? After all, if you did that you would be arrested wouldn’t you because it wouldn’t take too long for people to spot you. Well actually under certain circumstances you could get away with it but you need a good artist.
A New Kind of Jeans
Let me explain. Recently a fascinating social experiment was conducted in New York by Model Pranksters. The aim was to see how observant people are and the answer was not very! Model Leah Jung was sent onto the streets naked from the waist down but body art experts had painted on very realistic looking jeans complete with trendy patches and stitching.
The footage of the experiment was posted on YouTube and unsurprisingly went viral immediately. Clearly people are paying more attention to YouTube than to what is in front of them on the street. Nothing new there then!
The Adventure
Model Leah Yung was filmed as she walked around New York City taking the subway, traversing Times Square, visiting a busy branch of McDonalds and shopping. Nobody appeared to notice her acute state of undress even when she asked a shop assistant where she could find more jeans like the ones she was wearing! The only occasion on which someone had clearly spotted the ruse was when Leah stopped to top up her travel card. A cheeky guy whipped out his smartphone and took a picture of her behind!
Second Time Around
This was not the first time that such an experiment has been tried. Earlier this year a model walked around Lille, France with painted-on jeans but she was wearing a G-string. Her trip did cause a stir which was a good thing because the ruse in this case was created by students to fulfil an assignment to make a “Buzz video”. They certainly met their brief!
Tricking the Eye
It is interesting to note how so many people failed to notice that the New York model was sporting only a paint job. Perhaps the jeans were realistic enough for people to register denim and then move on. Perhaps many people were simply too busy to notice her at all. It is astonishingly simple to trick the eye if you have a little artistic talent.
A New Trend?
Could we see the emergence of a new fashion trend following this experiment? We all love our clothes and can’t wait to grab new styles. If we opted for paint effects instead of clothes then we could “wear” something different everyday if we wanted to and have the chance to design our own jeans. I am personally, however, rather partial to my Firetrap jeans and would fear discovery if I went naked. Paint effects don’t conceal a little excess weight either. There is also, of course, the small issue of needing a talented artist to hand to create the paint effects and I simply dread to think what might happen if it rained!
Article by Sally Stacey