December 01, 2004
Shine, little GloThong, glitter, glitter...

It's stories like this that make one truly proud to be associated with Rice University.


As if a plain old thong wasn't enough to accentuate what isn't covered, a Rice University MBA student has shed some neon light on the skin with a glow-in-the-dark version.

Beau Carpenter, an avid runner who also works at NASA, initially thought of creating glow-in-the-dark jogging clothes, but practicality evaporated when thongs captured his attention during his Internet research. He enlisted Chris Harris, an electrical engineering student at Rice, and Marcus Brocato, a chemistry lab manager at the Houston private university, to develop the GloThong.

"Being guys, it didn't take us long to gravitate to them," Carpenter told the Houston Chronicle in Sunday's editions. "My co-workers find it endlessly entertaining."

The thongs have lightweight, water-resistant batteries that, when fully charged, illuminate the straps for two hours in various neon colors, including blue, pink and yellow. Wearers can use a wall adapter to charge them up, but car chargers are available for those on the go.

They were a hit when the team recently took their invention to a topless bar in Dickinson.

"The women liked the product so much that they lined up to give us their real names and cell numbers," Carpenter said.

The thong will be available for $49.95 by mid-December, but the group intends to expand their offerings to include luminescent bras and bikinis.

"We're selling attention," Carpenter said. "You kind of feel like Cinderella until the Glo runs out."


Here's the Chron story, which features a photo of the inventor and a sample of his wares. Rice being the small community that it is, I know people who know these folks, so if you plan to order one of these babies as a Christmas present for that special someone in your life, I could possibly arrange to get it autographed for you. If that's not the best offer you've had all day, well, I guess I wouldn't be too surprised. Thanks to my buddy Matt for finding this.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on December 01, 2004 to Society and cultcha | TrackBack
Comments

I saw that yesterday, but it was an out-of-state report, so it didn't say it was from Rice.

Posted by: Ginger on December 1, 2004 10:31 AM

Do you think you could hook me up as the director of quality control/product testing and prototype fitting. I'm sure we could turn this around with an N of say . . . 40 -50 coeds??

Posted by: chris on December 1, 2004 2:03 PM

"We're selling attention," Carpenter said. "You kind of feel like Cinderella until the Glo runs out."

It's been a long time since I've heard the story of Cinderella, but although I know about a glass slipper, I never heard anything about a glowing thong. ;-)

"I'm sure we could turn this around with an N of say . . . 40 -50 coeds??"

Chris, I think you need to think bigger than that. 40-50 won't be enough to produce the needed statistics. :-)

Posted by: William Hughes on December 1, 2004 2:34 PM