Tampa Tribune (Florida)

August 6, 2004 Friday


Hands Of Hope Show

The 10th annual Project H: Hands of Hope Fashion Show and Extravaganza begins at 7 p.m. Saturday in the theater at Hillsborough Community College, 15th Street and Palm Avenue, Ybor City.

Organizer Azzie Northern plans to use the proceeds to create food baskets for distribution to the needy at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Kevin Murphy will speak, as well as Melvin Stone, Tampa's former fire marshal, who works at Florida A&M University.

Clothing on the runway will be provided by retailers including Bealls, JCPenney, Belmont Clothier, La France and Rainbow of Temple Terrace.

Tickets are $10; call (813) 671-2095 for information.

National Underwear Day

Wednesday is National Underwear Day, an event launched by www.Freshpair.com, an online retailer of men's and women's intimate apparel.

This year, 20 Freshpair models will roam midtown Manhattan wearing nothing but their skivvies and surveying the startled masses about their underwear preferences. That should be interesting.

Also interesting are these trivia tidbits provided by the retailer:

* Married men change their underwear twice as often as single men.

* Eight out of 10 women wear the wrong size bra.

* Eighty-two percent of women have tried on men's underwear.

* Thirty-one percent of men have tried on women's underwear.

Though Americans may spend nearly $13 billion a year on intimate apparel, in France — the so-called center of all things romantic — women spend 20 percent of their annual clothing budget on unmentionables.