A few days ago I wrote about Taiwanese girls and lensless glasses, one of the biggest fashion crimes I’ve seen in Taiwan so far.

After reading the write up reader Yi left a comment suggesting that perhaps the reason Taiwanese girls were flocking to lensless glasses was for the same reason girls were ‘getting bracers put in their mouth for fashion‘.

Getting braces fitted for fashion?!

Surely Asia hadn’t taken the adolescent icon that represents the pinnacle of ugliness, sore teeth and jaws, many a night eating nothing but soup for dinner and the destroyer of countless teenage love lives and somehow turned it into a goddamn fashion statement?

…

…guess again Oz.

I’ve seen a few girls in Taiwan sporting braces but it hadn’t for a second crossed my mind that they’d be wearing them just as a fashion statement. Sure I’ve seen some crazy outfits and accessories that defy explanation but seriously, braces?!

Thankfully it seems that this bizarre craze is localised to Thailand. Whilst girls in most other Asian countries seem content in dressing up in younger and younger girls clothing, wearing ridiculously large eye contact lenses and doing their hair up straight out of cartoons, all in the name of fighting off genderless male Asian pop icons, Thailand’s girls have taken it one step further.

Ladies and gentlemen behold fashionable braces, meet ‘Earn the Star’.

Earn the Star is a Thai singer who sports braces for no other reason then fashion. She’s partly responsible for a fashion braces craze amongst young Thai girls and has a lot to answer for.

Mostly I’d like her to answer ‘what the hell kind of name is Earn the freaking Star?!’

What’s sad is that girls in Thailand can’t afford to get proper braces so an industry revolving around shonky backyard operators has sprung up. Basically you pay some guy a couple of bucks to fit completely unnecessary non-functional braces purely for the look.

Unfortunately due to the unregulated nature of this industry last year two Thai girls died. Can you imagine a crappier way to lose your daughter?

‘Yeah so I used to have a daughter. One day she decided she wanted fashion braces, now she’s dead.

…

…I hate my life.’

Symptoms of poorly applied fashion braces are

canker sores, sliced inner lips, blood poisoning, infected dental tools, nerve damage and swallowing dislodged fittings.


Meanwhile here we are in the west complaining about anorexia. At least nobody’s ever died of starvation… our girls have it easy!

Whilst I was unable to find anything current about teeth braces being used as a fashion accessory in the west, I did come across this ‘Boca Raton News’ article published in 1998.

Braces, an erstwhile badge of metal-mouth nerds, have morphed into a preteen fashion accessory.

“We’ve had 10 year olds in tears because they wanted braces and they wanted them now”, said orthodontist Marc Lemchem.

“We once got a call from a child in the car. She decided she wanted braces, so could she come right over?”


I don’t know where I was when this craze was taking off but I certainly don’t recall braces being fashionable any time over the last few decades. Also I miss words like erstwhile appearing in newspaper articles, somebody needs to bring it back…

From a guy perspective I’ve simply got no idea what the girls of Thailand are thinking. I mean presumably the entire reason you’re wanting to be fashionable at that age is to attract other guys right? No not sleazy forty something year olds but boyfriends around your own age.

Fashion is fashion and it doesn’t change much regardless of your age bracket. You wear fashion to be noticed by other people.

Practicality wise it just gets worse. I’ve never looked at a girl with braces and thought they’ve made her more kissable. I mean cmon, it’s bad enough when you get a taste of what someone just had for lunch… who wants to taste what someone had for lunch last week?

There’s about forty seven different types of ew right there.

Then there’s the cutting and slicing of the other person’s lips and tongue… and oral sex, well I’m not even going to go there.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD THERE’S EVEN MICKEY FREAKING MOUSE DESIGNS AVAILABLE!

When I wrote about stupid lensless glasses and their popularity in Taiwan I thought I’d hit a low in Asian fashion. Surely I was scraping the barrel of fashion fads and nothing would come close to this level of unneeded pointlessness.

I had no idea that just three days later I’d find something even more stupid and bizarre in fashion braces.

Dear Girls of Asia,

please stop stuffing up your beautiful faces with crazy fashion accessories. I don’t want to be staring at massive black plastic glasses or a mouth full of unnecessary metal when I’m talking to you.

Signed,

every guy on the planet.

1. Black glasses with no lens: Stupid Taiwanese fashion
2. Foxtail fashion and scooters in Taiwan
3. Brynne Edelsten please stay the hell away from fashion
4. Never use football and fashion in the same sentence