Memo to fashion show staff: I’m sorry, but times are hard. We need to cut costs any way we can.

We’re hiring a raccoon who studied as a make-up artist. Now, don’t be so negative! It’s only make-up, how hard can it be? Plus, when she’s not working, she can wash food in the cafeteria. We’re also getting a monkey to do hair. He only knows one style, but we can live with that.

If this works we’ll save a fortune, and I have other good ideas, as well. Two words for you to think about: haute couture and chimpanzees!

Related: Models in witness protection and You’ve never done makeup?

Models present creations for Monique Lhuillier’s 2008/2009 Fall/Winter collection during New York Fashion Week February 5, 2008. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

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Memo to fashion show staff:

I should have been more specific, I guess. I did say my vision for this creation required a model with color in her face and a flower in her teeth, but I meant fiery cheeks and a perfect red rose clenched in her inviting lips.

I did NOT want you to hire a model currently suffering from jaundice, and jam a freaking daisy in her mouth!

I am just so VERY grateful this communication problem was discovered before tomorrow’s show, where I requested a model with smoldering eyes and flaming hair…

A model presents a creation by Italian design house Gattinoni during a Rome Fashion Week Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2008 show January 27, 2008. REUTERS/Chris Helgren

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Memo to fashion show employees: We have received a police tip that an escaped prisoner may try to infiltrate our show in Milan this week. 

The man is described as “wild-eyed, with unkempt hair and a disturbed look of intense anger.”  The authorities say he also believes he was a Confederate colonel  during the Civil War, and may dress accordingly.

It is very difficult to believe that someone like this could make it onto our runway, but please do be alert to the danger, and keep in mind the horrible lapse at Paris Fashion Week last summer:  Dude! Is there ANYTHING you wouldn’t wear?

A model displays a creation as part of Gucci’s Fall/Winter 2008/09 men’s collections during Milan Fashion Week January 14, 2008. REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo

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I don’t know for sure what this thing is. It looks like a bunch of blond braided hair, topped off with an anvil or a small horse head, and I gather these things are being hurled from rafters onto unsuspecting fashion models these days.

Obviously, safety precautions at this fashion show were inadequate. You can see the special horse head anvil protective netting snagged the thing but didn’t stop it, so now this poor women will have to undergo a painful horse head anvilectomy to remove it.

Meanwhile, I’m continuing my research into this alarming trend and will report back to you. I Googled fashion and anvil and small horse head and came up with a Utah educational television blurb about some blacksmith. This could take awhile.

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A model presents a creation by Romanian designer Catalin Botezatu during the 2007 Luxury Show in Bucharest December 8, 2007. REUTERS/Bogdan Cristel

Quick quiz: the last words this model will ever hear are…

• “Folks, stay away from the panda’s cage, he LOVES stealing ice cream!”
• “You should’ve had this growth looked at sooner. It may be too late alrea…”
• “Honey, bring me an hors d’oeuvre from over there under that ceiling fan…”

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A model presents a creation for Bandi-Panda fashion show by Chinese conceptual artist Zhao Bandi at China Fashion Week in Beijing November 4, 2007. REUTERS/Jason Lee

It can be awkward when you go pick up a blind date you met online, and she comes to the door with garlic hanging from her hair. You start wondering what a nice, sensitive guy would say, and you come up with stuff like:

• “Yeah, I smelled you from the street, but I’m desperate!”
• “I see you’re all ready to try out that new vampire bar.” 
• “Ah, when you said your hair smelled of cloves, I pictured something else.”
• “Awesome blouse, you reeking stinkfest garlic goddess!”

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A model presents a creation by Daria Kostenko during a fashion show in Budapest, October 27, 2007. REUTERS/Karoly Arvai

This isn’t what you’re probably thinking. 

This woman was not the victim of a Mafia hit, despite the telltale pasta on her head just like those wiseguys who often seem to flop forward into their linguine after they’ve been wasted. Nor is she doing some kind of bizarro tribute to Yankee Doodle, who stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni. 

No,  this model is just showing what happens when you take the phrase “angel hair” too literally: you wind up wearing a kind of clothing where you don’t need to ask the dry cleaner for starch, because it’s already there. This photo slideshow says it all:

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A model presents a pasta dress creation by Hungarian designer Virag Toth during a fashion show at an Italian restaurant in Budapest September 27, 2007. REUTERS/Karoly Arvai

Quick quiz: this model’s hair…

a) was styled by the Dairy Queen Frozen Custard All Night Hair Salon
b) helped make her Europe’s number one Marie Antoinette tribute artist
c) was swirled into this shape by the updraft from a passing gyrocopter
d) was the result of being sucked into a cotton candy machine at the Indiana State Fair

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A model displays a creation by Japanese designer Eri Utsugi for the “mercibeaucoup,” Spring/Summer 2008 collection during Japan Fashion Week in Tokyo August 30, 2007. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao

Anybody in advertising will tell you, do what you can to hook the customer. Now, take this watermelon salesman in the picture. I’ll bet buyers flock to him, because he’s got an act.

“Judy, we’re not getting our fruit from those other guys with no melons on their heads, and not even from that fella with only one melon. No, we’re doing business with the one who can balance two melons, until somebody comes along who can do three…”

Of course, maybe it’s all just a sad trick. What if that’s just a very elaborate haircut, or he has a spike through the melons, or what if they’re some of those fancy helium melons we’ve all read about? All we know for certain about this dude is, he arrives at the market looking like this, in a car with an open sunroof. Hmmmm…..

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A Palestinian vendor balances watermelons on his head to attract customers in the West Bank city of Ramallah July 30, 2007. REUTERS/Loay Abu Haykel

Quick quiz: A great compliment when a woman reaches 50 is…

a) Gosh, you look just like Sharon Stone
b) Gosh, you look just like Glen Close
c) Gosh, you look just like Diane Keaton
d) Gosh, you look just like Mao Zedong

Meet Chen Yan, a 51-year-old woman who looks and acts remarkably like Chairman Mao, the Chinese leader in the portrait (left) who died in 1976. Naturally, she’s trying to figure out how to make herself some money out of that. She has movies in mind, but how many Mao flicks the world needs is anybody’s guess.

Meanwhile, she could do children’s birthday parties, celebrity endorsements, stuff like that. On quiet days, she could just go to the mausoleum where Mao’s embalmed body is on display in Beijing, dart in and out of the tourist line, and scare the bejesus out of folks. Here’s the story:

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Chen Yan, a 51-year-old woman, waves to crowds while impersonating China’s late Chairman Mao Zedong, during a photocall in Mianyang, Sichuan province May 26, 2007. REUTERS/Reinhard Krause