Amateur Brain Surgery

The Nurse presents the case for trepanning yourself into fashion history

Having spent a few days chilling in solitary confinement The Nurse is feeling considerably less viputerative. That’s better. While drifting calmly in her drug-cosy haze, she mused upon her past. The incidents, accidents and triumphs enjoyed over decades of surrepticious, deliciously amateur brain surgery. Ah, the thrills and spills. The freedom. The intellectual explorations, the inspiration!

While idly contemplating her prison tattoos, The Nurse was struck by how utterly ordinary they were. Twenty five years ago her first tattoo, undertaken by a grubby individual in a kiosk at the end of Brighton Pier, caused moral outrage and shock. Back in the early 80s you didn’t get many tattooed ladies for your money, even in Brighton.

It’s hardly unusual for a lady to be tattooed in the noughties. And piercings, flung into the body decoration mix with fervour a few years ago, are as common as muck… no more the individual’s statement of rebellion. It’s not even unusual to have piercings and tattoos all over your face. The problem is, where does the fashion-conscious body decorator go from here? How to stand out amongst the madding (or just plain mad) crowd?

The UK fashion industry and it’s adoring public are in need of a big boost and The Nurse reckons she’s hit on the perfect solution: Catwalk trepanning.

Models with cheeky litte holes drilled just above the cheekbone, rather like Regency gentlemen’s stick-on beauty spots. Models with several holes of different circumferences, forming pretty flower patterns. Or smily faces. Nice.

Models whose trepanned holes are decorated with stick-on jewels and strung with beads. Strategically-placed holes could be even be used as ‘vases’ for fresh flowers, giving the impression that the model has a meadow growing out of her head. Vivienne Westwood might go for an updated punk version, where models are joined together in a chattering string via delicate silver chains. Or safety pins. Zandra Rhodes would, perhaps, opt for weaving rich jewelled velvets, silks and satins in and out of the holes to create a marvellous turban effect. With feathers.

Gosh. The Nurse, an arty individual, was nevertheless startled by her own perspicacity. Given a new lease of life, she’s now busy writing to Vivien Westwood, Zandra Rhodes, Caroline Charles and all the other great British designers from the heady days before her incarceration at her majesty’s pleasure. Sometimes she boils with sheer frustration at the restrictions placed upon her creative nature. But this, this… the pure beauty of it! She’s bursting with joi de vivre and excitement and wild, crazy plans.

… Celebrity trepanning, anyone?