Strange Icelandic Eco-fashion

As a fashion design major and someone who is very interested in eco-fashion, I decided to do some research on Icelandic eco-fashion. What I stumbled across was probably one of the strangest things I possible could have found. This photo is a pair of necropants... yes, necro, as in dead guy. These pants were made from the skin of a deceased man. The article goes into detail of how and why these pants were created. Now stored at the Icelandic Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft, these pants were thought to bring good luck and wealth to the sorcerer who wore them. They were created in the 17th century and are now the oldest pair of necropants that are still intact, and by intact, we're talking feet and scrotum still attached. That last statement also implies that there were more than one pair of necropants made which is ultimately disturbing. The museum website describes in detail the process the sorcerer must go through to receive this good luck and wealth:

“After he has been buried you must dig up his body and flay the skin of the corpse in one piece from the waist down. As soon as you step into the pants they will stick to your own skin. A coin must be stolen from a poor widow and placed in the scrotum along with the magical sign, nábrókarstafur, written on a piece of paper. Consequently the coin will draw money into the scrotum so it will never be empty, as long as the original coin is not removed.”

In order for the next wearer to continue this good luck, the new wearer must step into the right leg before the previous wearer has stepped out of the left leg. While this gives us a very interesting look at the pre-industrial past of Iceland, we still finish with an image of two living men wearing the same pair of pants made of one dead guy's skin...

Here is a link to the museum website that has several articles on the history of Icelandic Sorcery:

http://www.galdrasyning.is/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=5&Itemid=100034&lang=en

Icelandic Delicacies

Iceland is well-known for it's outlandish food culture and odd delicacies. Being an island, the country relies much on fishing, and a good amount of the food in Iceland includes seafoods. One of the top delicacies in Iceland is fermented shark. The head of a Greenland shark is buried in sand and cured through a fermentation process. The head is then hung out to dry for five months! The fermented meat has a very strong scent of ammonia and is extremely pungent and fishy tasting. Icelanders also often delve in Atlantic Puffin meat, a small bird that has legal protection in most other countries. Restaurants feature this meat a lot and typically smoke and cure it. The birds are caught using a technique called sky-fishing which involves a large net that catches low flying birds such as the Puffin. Another common food in Iceland is the meat of a minke whale. This meat is similar to beef but is supposed to be extremely tender and delicious! It is often served with a Brennivin sauce. Brennivin is the traditional alcohol of Iceland and is known for a horrid taste. Made from potato pulp and flavored with caraway seeds, this liquor is known as Black Death. It is often detested even by Icelandic natives whom will drink it usually when eating fermented shark or when making a show of Icelandic culture. This photo is a sealed jar of fermented shark meat.

Icelandic Media (Film)

     While researching Icelandic media, I came across several connections that link the US film industry with Iceland. I love making these connections because I think it allows US students to see in what ways many industries, such as film, have appreciated the aspects of Iceland and it's culture. I found many movies that were filmed in Iceland, for example, the recent "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", "Batman Begins", and "Journey to the Center of the Earth", which stars Anita Briem, a native to Reykjavik, Iceland. We discussed in the class blog about Icelandic music, how the sounds and lyrics often reference mystical and mythical creatures and put your mind in the place of an eerie story book. Actor Tom Hiddleston from "Thor: The Dark World" states, "It was really exciting to shoot the exteriors of Svartalfheim in Iceland, which of all the places on this planet I think is the most magical. It has an otherworldly quality to it and looks like another planet... you get purple skies... It's a world of ravines and waterfalls and lava and expanses of black sand and the northern lights. It's a good place for elves to be from!" Janet Graham Borba from "Game of Thrones" says, "...we wanted something shatteringly beautiful, barren, and brutal. In Iceland, we found all of that..." Perhaps Icelandic music is purely drawn from the scenery and the feeling musicians have while being amongst these incredible landscapes!
     Iceland has also passed special legislation that offers a twenty percent reimbursement of production cost for films and television programs that are produced in Iceland. The goal is "to enhance domestic culture and promote the history and nature of Iceland." The website of Iceland's official film commission is one that not only shares facts about Iceland and it's culture, but involves relationships to the USA. The website also include the most incredible photos of the extreme locations so many producers go to Iceland to film in. You have to check them out for yourself!

http://www.filminiceland.com/extreme-locations/ 

It was really exciting to shoot the exteriors of Svartalfheim in Iceland, which of all the places on this planet I think is the most magical. It has an otherworldly quality to it and looks like another planet… you get purple skies. We were shooting on a volcanic lava field and you can get big picture, epic footage there, which you can’t get anywhere else. It’s a world of ravines and waterfalls and lava and expanses of black sand and the northern lights. It’s a good place for elves to be from! - See more at: http://www.filminiceland.com/case-studies/quotes/#sthash.mGeXK17x.dpuf

It was really exciting to shoot the exteriors of Svartalfheim in Iceland, which of all the places on this planet I think is the most magical. It has an otherworldly quality to it and looks like another planet… you get purple skies. We were shooting on a volcanic lava field and you can get big picture, epic footage there, which you can’t get anywhere else. It’s a world of ravines and waterfalls and lava and expanses of black sand and the northern lights. It’s a good place for elves to be from! - See more at: http://www.filminiceland.com/case-studies/quotes/#sthash.mGeXK17x.dpuf

It was really exciting to shoot the exteriors of Svartalfheim in Iceland, which of all the places on this planet I think is the most magical. It has an otherworldly quality to it and looks like another planet… you get purple skies. We were shooting on a volcanic lava field and you can get big picture, epic footage there, which you can’t get anywhere else. It’s a world of ravines and waterfalls and lava and expanses of black sand and the northern lights. It’s a good place for elves to be from! - See more at: http://www.filminiceland.com/case-studies/quotes/#sthash.mGeXK17x.dpuf