On a happier (much funnier) note...

Now if we could only market this in America..



The Japanese ninja skirt that turns into a Coca Cola machine to ward off attackers
by DAVID GARDNER - More by this author »Last updated at 08:47am on 23rd October 2007

You've heard of hiding in plain sight.

Well, a fashion designer has come up with a more colourful way for worried women to blend into a busy street to elude a pursuer.

We've had mini-skirts, skorts, pencils and midis. Now there's the vending machine skirt.

It's definitely not the real thing, but Aya Tsukioka's skirt doubles as a disguise to make the wearer look like a Coca Cola machine.


Ms Tsukioka, 29, unveiled her design in Tokyo by claiming she hopes it will help ease women's fear of crime.

She lifted a flap on the skirt to expose a large sheet of cloth printed with the familiar bright red Coca Cola logo.

By unfolding the sheet and stepping to the side of the street, she showed how a woman walking alone could hide behind it to outfox a potential attacker.



Her deluxe model even boasts four sides for a more complete cover.

The experimental clothes designer has already sold 20 of the £400 hand-sewn vending machine skirts and it hoping to market the design worldwide.

She says the idea was inspired by a trick used by Japanese ninja assassins, who cloaked themselves in black blankets so they couldn't be seen at night.



If the fizzy drink machine seems a little elaborate, not to mention impractical, she has also come up with the 'manhole bag' which is supposed to look like a sewer cover when you put it down so unwitting thieves walk right by without noticing it.

For children, she has a backpack that transforms into a fire hydrant.

While British women might prefer to take self-defence classes, Ms Tsukioka said: "It is just easier for Japanese to hide. Making a scene would be too embarrassing."

She admits that making the switch from skirt to vending machine might prove a little tricky "especially when your hands are shaking".

But she told the New York Times: "These ideas might strike foreigners as far-fetched, but in Japan, they can become reality."


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=489110&in_page_id=1811