Ever notice how much of design is based on a woman's curves? Take a look a Coca-Cola bottle, a sleek car, or even an iPod -- if you're not turned on in at least some subconscious way, you're not breathing.

Design aficionado Stephen Bayley's new book, "Woman as Design: Before, Behind, Between, Above, Below" (Conran Octopus, buy now on Amazon!) -- is, in the words of one critic, a love letter turned novel turned "newest coffee-table playground for perverts." Sounds like the perfect holiday present to us.

In Bayley's 325 provocatively decorated pages, the question "If a woman is a design, then what exactly was the brief?" surges through the chapters on breasts and bottoms. He charts the ever-changing mysterious masterpieces (from the plentiful Venus of Willendorf to the waiflike Kate Moss to the curvaceous Beth Ditto) that he believes are the perfect union of form and function. He insists feminine curves and proportions have inspired for centuries everyone from product designers to architects to car makers, as he draws parallels to the Coca-Cola bottle and the Ford Mustang.

Bayley is a design guru in every sense of the word. In the eighties he was the chief executive of the Design Museum. In 1989 he was given France's top artistic honor. And today he consults for global brands including Absolut Vodka, TBWA, and Foster Associates, while writing for GQ and The Observer.

With no intention to objectify women -- "I am not a pompous old slapper!" he wittily insists -- his book is meant to be more of an enjoyable romp than a scholarly text. Yet his goal is to to provide a "generous, appreciative, and broadminded account of how and why natural female physicality is molded to satisfy the desires of contemporary culture -- particularly that of male culture."

He quotes Apple's Steve Jobs commentary on the latest iPod in saying, "You know a design is good if you want to lick it." He says the bra was designed by a woman, meant for a man. "It is packaging!"

Bayley, an "interpreter" of objects, also argues that in any historical period the favorite form of woman or building or product design betrays societal fears. "I believe there is a counterintuitive thing going on at the moment," he says on the current economic uncertainty. "We tend to go to voluptuous women for a symbolism of nurture and comfort we perhaps need." While during not too far off times of great prosperity we favored extreme slender proportions, he says. "Everywhere there are reticules on how curves are back," he adds, pointing out that contemporary car design is much more feminized in its sensitive, delicate details and voluptuous curves.

The book was met with considerable criticism when it dropped earlier this month, and quite the fan mail due to feminist Germaine Greer's pleading, yet not that persuasive, Guardian article, "Women everywhere -- please send a picture of your unsupported breasts to Stephen Bayley."

"I'm disappointed few people took the challenge," Bayley said. "Tragically, I received only three photographs, two of which were rather cross knuckle dragging sexists, and one quite charming woman."

Plus, bra-less wonders, Bayley said the book was his wife of 28 years' idea.