Under the dirty veneer of Parramatta Road, between Leichhardt & Annandale, lies a bridal front line: a war of wedding dress shops. Colourful pinheads in the grime.

The bridal frocks overwhelm the bridesmaids frocks through sheer power and volume, if not through palette. Folds and pleats of white or cream cloth studded with faux jewels, faux flowers, faux or real feathers, set off by subtle sashes or framed by dark carpets and curtains. No expense spared.

Bridal mannequins, victims in the silent war, are most often headless.

In one shop stands four (headless) mannequins in demure pastel frocks that tie under their busts or gather across their waists. They're arranged as if awaiting high tea, standing on a lawn of bright green astroturf and with an ankle-high white picket fence (I kid you not) behind them. Their empty plastic hands imply flowers or handkerchiefs or the occasional posie, or they’re clasped shyly behind the mannequin’s skirts. (These latter dolls, I imagine, have no hands, just stark cuts where their wrists end, metal poles hanging straight where their fingers should be.)

Their bare plastic arms look soft, elbows curved rather than bent. Four perfect, virginal, pretty dolls.

In the shop right next door are four other mannequins. These ones stand out amidst Parramatta Road's grey modesty. They even stand out amongst the bridal shops full of gowns (modest in their own ostentatious way). For a start, these mannequins have heads.

They are the dolls for the lingerie shop, dressed alarmingly (if not alluringly) in black or red lace, hands on hips, hips thrust out forward or sideways as if caught mid-gyration. They glare confidently with all the attitude and humour of their outrageous merchandise. Tight synthetic skirts stretch over hard thighs. Bustiers boost plastic busts. Stockings are strikingly fishnetted and flash, feet are not hidden by frocks but are bare.

On one dummy, a feathered mask stands upright off her crown by inches.

They are proud, striking mannequins. Boldly plastic, convincingly and confidently not human. And though its easy to imagine their lingerie under the full pastel skirts of their headless partners, it’s harder to spot how their posed attitude can be harnessed and hidden by any amount of cloth. Surely the thrust of that hip could never be camoflauged. Surely the sharp angle of that elbow could not be covered by lady-like gloves.

Surely the near-naked cheer of the lingerie store mannequins could not be lost under the anonymity of the wedding dress wonderwomen in all their white finery.

Though hidden couldn't be the goal, surely. Perhaps, instead, the ava/eva nature of the shops on Parramatta Road are not a binary position (yes/no, on/off, virgin/whore), but two aspects of the same face, two pieces of the same puzzle, two allies in the same war for the brides who shop there.