Last week we gave you a glimpse at some of the craziest, stupidest and most downright worthless fashion-themed gadgets we’ve ever run across. This week, we’re sorry to say, it gets even worse. Click here to read part 1.
10. Grande Headphones in Sashimi
These are actually an attractive set of cans when they aren’t manufactured in the most disgusting combination of three colors you’ve ever seen mashed together. They’ve got blocks of faded-80’s-t-shirt pink, dentist’s-chair green, and rusty-pipe brown all hanging out on the same headphones. It’s like someone disassembled three different pairs of the gaudiest headphones they could find and reassembled them into the Optimus Prime of foul fashion. (link)
9. Cenio Arttops
We’re all for laptops moving away from boring silver and black designs and onto something a little more colorful, but Cenio’s Arttops look more like binders marked up in study hall than anything an adult would want to be seen in public with. Call it quirky if you must, but having “HIT ME!!!” etched on your laptop in block letters (yes, it really does say that) just seems kind of immature. And for $4,000, you’re really better off investing in some Wite-Out and doing it yourself. (link)
8. Hummer HT1 Phone
Sorry, no diesel engines, 37-inch tires, intake snorkels, or machine gun turrets here, just another ho-hum phone branded with an expensive car logo and marked up 300 percent. In other words, it’s the cell phone equivalent of the H2. And apparently popular with the same losers who buy them – since the maker, ModeLabs, managed to sell through 50,000 of them and produce a sequel. Amazing. (link)
7. Casio G-Shock G8100A-5
It takes a special kind of person to appreciate the unique look of Casio’s G-Shock watches. In most cases, it’s your dad, circa 1982. In this case, it’s Will Smith in Wild Wild West. Whether or not you dig the whole steampunk design ethos, this watch doesn’t really manage to pull it off: It’s just a chunky, hard-to-read plastic watch soaked in copper color. And unlike the rest of Casio’s garish G-Shock watches, it doesn’t even do anything impressive like tell you the tide, the phase of the moon, or what to eat for dinner. (link)
6. Wazakura Koubou Gold Keyboard
Ignoring the through-the-roof cheez factor of any gold keyboard, this particular model just completely falls on its face when it comes to execution. Instead of actually pulling off the polished shine you might expect, its manufacturer covered it in gold leaf, giving it a crumbled look that resembles a bunch of Roche candy wrappers glued onto a $10 no-name keyboard. For $270, we’ll stick with the Optimus Maximus, thanks. (link)
5. Singulum Notebooks
While the rest of the world has gone crazy for “green” design concepts that use bamboo, corn plastic, recycled materials and other Earth-friendly resources, Singulum caters to the trust fund crowd with rare and exotic woods, gold, and that favorite of environmentalists – ivory. If Cruella de Vil built computers, these would be them – with puppy fur trim, of course. (link)
4. Philips-Swarovski Active Crystals “Lock Out” USB Memory Key
While most thumb drive manufacturers concentrate on protecting your data with better encryption, Philips and Swarovski wrapped this one in crystals to make it the flashiest, most eye-catching target for thieves possible. Perfect. The heart-shaped variants that could actually pass off as pendants at least make sense, but this lock version has us puzzled. Would anyone actually wear a lock this size from their neck? Maybe Flavor Flav should get in the game with an enormous clock USB drive. (link)
3. Skull Candy G.I. Headphones
With a company name like Skull Candy, you know you’re in for some obnoxious crap. These cans deliver on your expectations with camouflage padding, steel eyelets, and to top it all off, faux bullets across the top. (Even the manufacturer seems to have realized how goofy this looks and removed it from the latest version.) The only good thing about these behemoth cans is that they’re probably too unwieldy to bring out of your house, which will spare buyers the public mockery of busting them out on the bus or subway. That’s right, keep them in the nest of Cheez Doodle bags around the computer where you play Counter-Strike, where they belong. (link)
2. Ruby Studded TV
Somewhere in Italy, there’s a designer spinning a wheel with different electronic devices on it, a wheel with different jewels on it, and constructing the resulting hybrids. We’re pretty sure this monstrosity was borne of that very process, hence the absolutely abysmal level of creativity and senseless use of jewels. From 20 feet away, this thing just looks like an ordinary TV with chickenpox. At least put them on the remote, where you can appreciate them. Plastering a TV in rubies brings the whole “jewel-encrusted” luxury fad to a new level of idiocy. (link)
1. Deco King Nintendo DS
Different countries have different standards of beauty, but this Japanese marvel is still miles away from anything passable as “tasteful” here on Planet Earth. It’s like a kindergartener got into Grandma’s costume jewelry box with a bottle of Crazy Glue in one hand and a Nintendo DS in the other. The saddest part: you actually need to send a DS in to this company to have it dolled up. For the damage Deco King has done to otherwise perfectly good Nintendo systems, we award it the high honor of Worst Fashion Gadget Ever. Rest in peace, innocent DSes. (link)
