Elephant leather?

[Bishop of Briggs]

So what's the most un-PC outfit? Llama wool suit, alligator or crocodile shoes, dogskin gloves, ivory cufflinks and tiger skin wallet etc?

And afterwards, a Polish barbecued swan sandwich (they've been nicking them out the Thames).

[Concordia]

Lattanzi offers elephant shoes, and I've seen elephant in books from Cleverley.

I think if you google around you might find a lot of cowboy boots made from it as well.

[storeynicholas]

So what's the most un-PC outfit? Llama wool suit, alligator or crocodile shoes, dogskin gloves, ivory cufflinks and tiger skin wallet etc?

And afterwards, a Polish barbecued swan sandwich (they've been nicking them out the Thames).

Not sure that llamas die in rendering their wool for alpaca - as for alligator and crocodile - their skins are readily (if expensively) available. Tigers are in a different category. Doesn't it all depend upon us using the resources of the earth responsibly? After all, God gave man dominion over the other creatures of the earth.
NJS

[carl browne]

There's a very funny bit in Evelyn Waugh's "Men at Arms" about an army officer's penchant for "porpoise" boots.

I've also heard that Aristotle Onasis had the bar stools aboard his yacht "Christina" upholstered with the foreskins of whales (but that story may be apocryphal).

[carl browne]

The most un-PC outfit woud not come from animals at all.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," Gatsby's business associate Meyer Wolfsheim displays cufflinks made from human molars.

[storeynicholas]

The most un-PC outfit woud not come from animals at all.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," Gatsby's business associate Meyer Wolfsheim displays cufflinks made from human molars.

I still have, in a matchbox, 4 of my own molars, extracted when I was a teenager, 'to make room' - and now you have given me a brilliant idea: to have them made them into my own very best evening links - but only for white tie... of course. Nothing un-PC in that - revolting, maybe, but there we are! I once knew an African Chief who wore 'the bones of his ancestors' (surely only a merely representative sample) around his neck in a little leather sachet - or, maybe, he was just having a joke at my expense: he never said more.
NJS

[Concordia]

I once knew an African Chief who wore 'the bones of his ancestors' (surely only a merely representative sample) around his neck in a little leather sachet - or, maybe, he was just having a joke at my expense: he never said more.
NJS

Shades of "Kind Hearts and Coronets," perhaps?

[Costi]

I once knew an African Chief who wore 'the bones of his ancestors' (surely only a merely representative sample) around his neck in a little leather sachet

Leather!?... What kind of leather do you suppose THAT was?

[pvpatty]

And afterwards, a Polish barbecued swan sandwich (they've been nicking them out the Thames).

Family legend has it that during WW2, when my grandfather and his brothers ran a restaurant, rationing made it difficult to find duck to serve to their customers. Mysteriously, at around the same time that they became very good friends with the council game warden, swans started disappearing from the botanical gardens, and duck was back on the menu

[storeynicholas]

I once knew an African Chief who wore 'the bones of his ancestors' (surely only a merely representative sample) around his neck in a little leather sachet

Leather!?... What kind of leather do you suppose THAT was?

Yes, I wonder - actually, I think it more likely that the sachet contained some prayer or talisman - but who knows? He would never expand on the subject and human remains can hang around. The very old mother of a friend died a few years ago and he and his three sisters determined to scatter the ashes in a particular place in Derbyshire but they found it difficult to find the moment and so the ashes remained in a cupboard for about a year. Apparently, Dorothy Parker's ashes are still in a filing cabinet in her attorney's office - now that is what I call client care and attention!
NJS

[culverwood]

My uncle had an artificial hip joint fitted some time ago. He obtained the section of bone from the top of his leg which had been replaced by stainless steel (or other material) and had it made into the handle/top of a walking stick.

[storeynicholas]

My uncle had an artificial hip joint fitted some time ago. He obtained the section of bone from the top of his leg which had been replaced by stainless steel (or other material) and had it made into the handle/top of a walking stick.

Presumably, so that he'd still get use out of it as a kind of third leg.
NJS

[pvpatty]

My uncle had an artificial hip joint fitted some time ago. He obtained the section of bone from the top of his leg which had been replaced by stainless steel (or other material) and had it made into the handle/top of a walking stick.

Presumably, so that he'd still get use out of it as a kind of third leg.
NJS

Waste not, want not.

[storeynicholas]

My uncle had an artificial hip joint fitted some time ago. He obtained the section of bone from the top of his leg which had been replaced by stainless steel (or other material) and had it made into the handle/top of a walking stick.

Presumably, so that he'd still get use out of it as a kind of third leg.
NJS

Waste not, want not.

I have most of my milk teeth and also four secondary molars (already mentioned) so, maybe, I should have them all combined in some piece of art work. There was a further molar but the crown shatterd in my mouth, under extraction, and I didn't feel like keeping the roots which a team of three in hospital had to lever out afterwards. Actually, I don't say this just to raise a groan because, despite the mess and pain that the original buffoon had caused, a tiny female dental surgeon, at University College Hospital, and two larger students extracted the roots completely painlessly even though she had to drill slightly into the jawbone to find any purchase, and, after this, I have never (DV and touch wood) been to a dentist since - and that was early 1991. Such consummate skill as hers is evidence of a deep well of elegance.
NJS.

[jamesbd]

This thread seems to have moved on from it's beginnings, but, if anyone is interested, I once made a pair of shoes from elephant skin for an African medical doctor, who i was told was a tribal chief.

I cannot vouch for the veracity of the tale, but the shoes were real. The skin was grey, thick, and covered in tiny raised marks. Like toad skin but finer. It was surprisingly easy to last considering its thickness.

Thanks