Vending machine in a skirt

Crime-fearing female pedestrians in Tokyo can soon protect themselves with fashion designer Aya Tsukioka's skirt that opens into a realistic-looking (except made of fabric), full-size vending machine that she hopes thugs will pass right by. It's one of several fanciful crime-avoiding creations of the genre that Japanese inventors are noted for, according to an October New York Times dispatch. Another, the "manhole bag," resembles a sewer covering when laid on the ground but can hold a person's valuables, again provided that the thug passes it up. Yet another is women's wraparound sunglasses that are extra-dark so that even shy, eye-contact-avoiding females can stare unobserved at potential perverts in trains to guard against the ubiquitous groping.