The resulting objects come out of a bath of plastic looking like Neo tumbling out of his oozing cocoon in The Matrix.
Many of the dolls (er, outfits) were festooned with painterly embellishments, sprays of crystals, trims of feathers and pieces of plastic-looking materials that seemed at times to be placed at random.
Ms. Parmenter was hooked by the Madonna of "Desperately Seeking Susan," the 1985 movie that defined the manic plastic look of fashion of the decade.
Teresita Fernandez's "Sky (Plane)," a lowered, undulating ceiling of parallel tubes in translucent blue and clear plastic plays on dreams of a perfectly synthesized future, while Stephen Hendee's "War Gems," an internally illuminated igloolike crystalline structure of corrugated plastic, looks like part of a set for "Star Wars".
The prefab lunar interiors have the molded plastic look of a backlot, like the 1990 "Total Recall" or the Universal CityWalk mall in Burbank, whichever is tackier.
From both of these articles, it is becoming more obvious that a pleasing physical appearance can easily be purchased - and I don't know about you, but this cloned, plastic look of attempted "perfection" is getting to be all the more unappealing than appealing.
The motor was also taken out and replaced with pieces of plastic that look like a motor.
He was referring to sheets of plastic that look like burled wood, the sort you've seen in cars that have fake wood grain on the dash board.
Their attraction, she said, was not instant; maybe, she says jokingly, it was his "pleather" jacket, made of plastic to look like leather.
And LeRoy Ward of Manhattan, commenting on the photograph of Mr. Dimon showing his ID at the Justice Department, wondered if JPMorgan could "donate money to the DMV to upgrade these worthless pieces of plastic?" A look back on our reporting of the past week's highs and lows in finance.
