Window Shopping

The windows downtown at Neiman Marcus are sparsely filled just now. There is only one figure in a Main Street window that runs 15 feet across. In the right half a long black ribbon drops from the ceiling and knots to a coat hanger. The hanger supports a sleeveless top sewn with a hundred tiny mirrors, the top tucked into a pleated salmon skirt, from which emerges a pair of crossed mannequin legs in fishnet tights and capped with snakeskin stiletto heels. The outfit plus a jeweled-clasp, salmon-colored clutch sit on a gold framed chair with a red velvet seat. One mannequin arm, bent slightly at the elbow, sharply at the wrist, fits an invisible mannequin hand into a red glove draped over the upper knee in a pose both haughty and blasé. There is nothing else in the whole of the case. There is no face, no torso, no second arm. As if, when clothes make the woman, they make her piece by piece.