rat in the kitchen, rat on your head: reid's rats

If anyone is reading this while having lunch (UK/Greenwich Mean Time), breakfast (US - Eastern Seaboard) or any other meal anywhere in the world - probably best to turn away from your screen now. Because I'm going to talk about my friend Reid Peppard, and her rats.

It's not just rats. It's road kill. Fox molars. It's the kind of gross stuff that makes girls go 'yuck'.

Reid is brilliant. She's beautiful, for starts - a California girl who graduated from Central Saint Martins, lives with her artist boyfriend in East London, works at her studio every day, come rain, come shine, and who at the moment, has a Snot Bag for a head, so I'm doing this post as a little get well gift. Along with a little ditty from UB40, which you can click on now as background music for this post:





Reid is an artist, taxidermist, and accessories designer: real, gorgeous serious jewelry, and headpieces - even, as I discovered altho she's too modest to mention it, the 'rat headpiece' worn by Lady Gaga.



Stuffing rats for head gear is not all she does, of course. She's a conceptual artist, possessed of a beautiful mind, and she doesn't cause any deaths, but - this is an important part of her work, because she is strictly anti-meat eating - she only uses road kill, i.e., animals that are already dead. After writing yesterday about the ethics in clothing - and thank you to all who wrote those wonderful comments- I now turn to the controversy surrounding food. Opening THAT whole can o' worms.





Reid Peppard is one of those rare creatures: beautiful, smart, talented, massively funny, generous spirited, gentle, and kind. And - lucky me - Reid is also my friend.

Reid is wearing a vintage leather jacket with shoulder pads big and tough enough for a game of American touch tackle football. Check out Reid's Rats (RP/Encore), let me know what you think - and get well soon, Snot Bag Head.