Fad fair for the fairly frustrated

Press, 3 December 1987, Page 20

Fad fair for the fairly frustrated

By MARTIN MERZER of Knight-Ridder Newspapers (through NZPA) New York Becky Wright caressed the fluffy little teddy bear and empathised with the trade show visitor. "You look like a person with frustrations,” she said sweetly. “What should you do?” And now she was transformed. “This is what you do!” she screamed, viciously twisting the teddy bear. “See, you rip its head off, maybe its arms and its legs — yeah, that’s what you do.” Even for New York, this seemed pretty bizarre, but Becky Wright was tame compared with other exhibitors at the third annual Fad Fair. More than 100 off-the-wall entrepreneurs lined the walls of a midtown exhibition centre, all hoping to benefit from the next world class fad, and just in time for Christmas, too.

It was a pretty strange place. There should have been a sign outside saying: “Caution: helmets and strong stomachs are advised." Boomerangs whizzed

through the air. Grown men wore arrows on (through?) their s heads. A woman selling something called a furbel (a squeezeable ball of fake fur) was inexplicably dressed like Carmen Miranda. Some guy kept bellowing on a elfun horn, which, of course, sounded sort of like an elephant It was a show that just had to be in New York, and Wright’s exceedingly breakable teddy bear, called Dismembear (SUS 23 $3B) was seemingly made for New York. She calls it a stressrelief product, which, as luck would have it, neatly fits back together for use another day. She says she sells a lot of them to corporate executives. At the next table were Vern McDonald and Brian Kelly.

They call their product the soft shoe (SUSS, $8.30) a sponge-l|ke shoe, perfect. for tossing at the television when your team starts- losing. Also popular: the Yuffie sweatshirt (for Young Urban Failures) and the flip clip, designed to keep a toilet seat in the up mode. Men are especially keen on this product, the creator claimed. And, of course, the phoneless cord ... no busy signals or bad connections. No elevator music on hold. Actually, no hold at all. Clark Jobe, the hopeful inventor, said he had. several similar products on the drawing board, including the braless strap and the dressless back. “Wanna know what’s the most promising of all?” he whispered. “The diamondless flaw. We’ll make a mint on that”