Method Man might have helped make gold fronts famous, but it looks like Japanese schoolgirls could be the driving force behind a new era of fashionable accessories for your teeth. Instead of gold, however, these "fronts" contain bright multicolored glowing LED lights.
The new fashion accessories were originally created as an experiment by two Japanese designers and are now being used in a commercial advertising a winter sale at a Japanese clothing store, Laforet Harajuku.
They are quickly becoming a sought after accessory.
The LED smiles can easily be affixed to your teeth and glow different colors while you smile. The colors can be changed wirelessly through a computer interface. Of course they work best in the dark.
Motoi Ishibashi, one of the designers involved in the project, explained in a blog post that the original idea for the LED smiles came after he saw a video last year of LED Throwies, which are little lights that can be affixed to a magnet and thrown on metal surfaces. They are like lighted graffiti.
Mr. Ishibashi and Daito Manabe, the other designer and technologist on the project, are offering workshops in Japan showing people how to build their own LED smiles.