Conquering the Mound

Neptune's style Image: Joel Kramer

The window of American Apparel always looks like an 80s Keep Fit (remember? Every Thursday night your mum went down the village hall and did an hour of Keep Fit in a leotard and leggings and that was OK) video still. With brightly coloured of metallic lycra stretched across mannequins buttocks and strips of material that could be a headband or a skirt you're not sure. Well, it's yet to be covered on BBC Radio 4's flagship programme Today but in addition to the visible nipples and big glasses adults don't wear any more, American Apparel have continued with the nostalgic nudity and whacked merkins down their mannequins be-leotarded crotches and everybody is talking about it.

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Everybody was already talking about women's pubic hair because 1) they usually are, it's peculiarly high on the feminist agenda and 2) Cameron Diaz, having entertained Graham Norton with stories of her terrorising a very good friend with the beaver trimmers, came out in support of a full beef curtain pelmet (I paraphrase - but that's totally how Cammie would put it) in her book about the body. Which is not a biology book. 3) there were a number of surveys last year that revealed women aren't bothering with the lady garden maintenance as much as women's magazines and beauticians would have us think.

So really American Apparel are hanging on to the hairy bandwagon by the short and curlies rather than blazing any lucky trail (I hope you see what I did there) Their visual merchandiser Dee Myles said that the Valentine's display was intended to "bring rawness and newness to a holiday thought of as a romantic Hallmark holiday...by exploiting the lust of Valentine's Day." Myles also observed the need to "have instances spark up curiosity and conversation about what we deem beautiful and sexy." and make people buy things...

I really don't think pubes are important - present or not. I would like it to once and for all be clear that they aren't unhygienic, I once saw a teenage girl go through several emotions in quick succession when she overheard me tell my mother in Primark that a shaven pubis was a sign of pubic lice in the olden days, hence the noblest of inventions The Merkin.

you must never say pubic hair when writing for women

However American Apparel know that people are still very curious about pubic hair. Is it on or off, guys? Beverly Turner in the Telegraph's Wonder Women section was quick to instruct women to join all the other women apparently not bothering with their "pubic topiary" (you must never say pubic hair when writing for women) and make sweeping statements about the hair free vulva: "Only teenage boys with more porn than experience could freely express a preference for a hair-free ninky-nonk without sounding like a paedophile." If a man refers to your genitals as your 'ninky-nonk' then you might well infer he's been spending inappropriate time with young girls. Whatever happened to 'down there'?

I date myself when I tell you that I had a housemate who told me he regularly applied Immac to his special area, I expect he Veets it now. However I doubt he ever comes up against comments from his fellow men about whether or not his winky-wonk looks like a little boys or not. Or if they are they aren't talking about his man garden.

Squeamish Kate