Swine Flu Gives Fashion Blogs Surgical Mask Fever

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There's a fashion angle on the swine flu story, of course: Surgical masks! We could have predicted a post or two about fashionable face coverings, but we didn't anticipate that we'd see four this afternoon. Our round-up:

1.) The creepy: New York blog Guest of a Guest discovered masks decorated to look like other animal's mouths, by a company called Samiraboon. Looking too hard at the monkey makes us uncomfortable.

2.) The stylish: Refinery29 dug up a high-meets-low assemblage that runs from Hussein Chalayan's beekeeper veil to American Apparel's mustache mask.

3.) The boldfaced names: NYT blog The Moment produced a whole slideshow of masks at Fashion Week. Alexander McQueen, Martin Margiela, Junya Watanabe—obviously they all knew about swine flu months in advance.

4.) The adorable: Designer Irina Blok's line surgical mask includes one with a Lady Gaga-ish zipper, one in a dashing leopard print, and one, our favorite, that just says "OINK" in big pink letters.