Nipple mannequins

Womens' fashion is not tremendously advanced in New Zealand (or Wellington at least). Most often, something will have gone catastrophically wrong with an outfit in between concept and realization - usually, this takes the form of a hideous top.

I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that window displays are genuinely awful. There's one shop across from one of our bus stops that has a new laughably bad clothing selection every week. Despite the recession, it's still in business. Do people look at these displays and think, "Huh. Well, if that's what's in style right now..."

The mannequins themselves may foster this collective delusion. They're usually headless, smooth and white, of course, but they all seem to have pert breasts with well-defined nipples. Nipples! On a mannequin! It's almost as though they had decided to install penises on the male mannequins - you know, for realism in pants fitting. (I have seen one headless male specimen modeling spandex with a dildo fitted down his leg - but that was more of an aesthetic choice.)

It's really distracting, is what I'm trying to say. It's not as though I haven't seen my share of nipples - it's more that their existence perplexes me.

So I was walking through the CBD today, minding my business and watching the shop-fronts. Then, going by another one of these poor-taste womens'-clothes shops, I saw two hands slide past the waist of the middle mannequin and pull its shirt up and over, revealing two perfectly white, perky breasts tipped by the usual bewildering nipples.

It was an alarming sight - until I realized that the mannequin itself wasn't moving.