Loopy
Lap Pillows
Single or
lonely Japanese men may want a lap pillow this Christmas as sales
climb. The "lap pillow," with skin-colored polyurethane calves
folded under soft thighs. The $90 pillow, which comes with one
red and one black skirt, went on sale in late November and maker
Trane Co Ltd says shipments have reached 3,000 in just a few weeks.
"We created
this item to help tired people relax," said Makoto Igarashi, Trane's
managing director. Care was taken with details such as the softness
of the thighs, panty lines on the pillow's "backside" and wrinkles
in the lap of the skirt so as to make the pillow look and feel
as real as possible. "We thought our main customers would be men
in their 20s, but even men in their 60s are buying it," Igarashi
said. At stores, lap pillows gather crowds where people poke and
pry at the foam legs. "I think this may be good for single men,
but it could cause trouble for someone who is married," said Shingo
Shibata, a 27-year-old company employee browsing at a toy store
which sells the pillow.
