The Ultimate Fashion Victim

An apparently fashion-starved orangutan stripped the clothes off a French tourist as he was strolling in a Malaysian park on Borneo island, that nation’s Bernam news agency reported this week. The 14-year-old male orangutan grabbed the startled tourist and pulled off his pants, shirt and underwear as he stood motionless next to his wife, the news agency quoted an official as saying. The ape fled into the woods with the clothes, while the tourist ran naked to the park’s office and borrowed clothes from a group of tourists, the agency reported. The dispatch gave no word on why the tourist did not try to escape--or what the animal did with its new outfit.

* GOING HOME: Pop star David Bowie’s wife, Iman, said she had suffered “emotional agony” when she returned to Somalia, and appealed this week for volunteer teachers to help her set up schools there. Iman, 37, said her first visit in 20 years this month to the war-torn and famine-stricken country shocked her. “Nothing prepared me for what I saw,” said the international model turned film actress. Iman, who fled Somalia with her family when she was 17, said the country needed schools if it was to have a future. “There are no schools and the children haven’t been taught for three years,” she said. She intends to set up a foundation for an education program in Somalia and is talking to lawyers about how to raise funds.

* TV TRIMS: All in all, it is a busy time--stylewise--in Malaysia. Tourists who are not busy fending off clothes-stealing creatures may want to watch that nation’s information minister cut the long hair of some rock stars during a live television broadcast next month. On Feb. 22, the minister, Mohamed Rahmat, banned all male artists with long hair from appearing on Malaysian television, saying it set a poor example for the nation’s youth.

But members of the top two rock groups in Malaysia, Search and Wings, refused to cut their hair and were not allowed to perform on television-- reducing their popularity. The two groups met with Mohamed recently and agreed to make a comeback by getting televised haircuts on Nov. 1. Group members also agreed to cover their tattoos and stop wearing earrings and torn clothing.

* SHIRT TALES: Shirt manufacturer Cluett, Peabody & Co. denied last week that closing six of its plants in the Southeast was related to its decision to build a new factory in Honduras after getting U.S. aid to train managers for the new plant. In a statement issued by its New York office, the firm, whose labels include Arrow brand shirts, disputed allegations by Rep. George Brown (D-Calif.) that the six Arrow Shirt plants in Georgia and Alabama were closed after U.S. Agency for International Development funds were used to lure the company to Honduras. Brown, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, released agency documents last week showing that a Honduran foundation created by the agency provided a 50% subsidy to the company in 1986 to train managers and supervisors for its Honduras plant. A company spokesman acknowledged the subsidy. But he added that the Honduras plant manufactures knit shirts, which have never been produced in the United States by Cluett, Peabody. He said the Honduras factory was built to compete with knit imports from the Far East.

* VEILED SOAP OPERAS: One of Pakistan’s best-known actresses turned down the leading role in a new television series because the government now requires all women to wear dupattas , or veils, over their heads on soap operas, newscasts and other programs on the state-run television network, the Washington Post reports.

In another television show, directors wrestled with a scene in which a woman’s head had to be covered with a scarf while her hair was being shampooed. During this summer’s Olympic Games, the government refused to allow women’s swimming events to be shown on television because the swimsuits were considered too immodest for Islamic sensibilities. Television censors also have banned use of female models in commercials for men’s products, the newspaper says.