Plastic Zipper

I've been noticing something odd this winter. Many people I run into are wearing coats with plastic zippers. And not just any plastic zippers, either: coats with big, huge, gigantic plastic zippers, huge plastic teeth as if in parody of real zippers. Huge plastic Fischer Price zippers.

I can't figure it out. I can't imagine buying a coat with a huge plastic zipper. Of all the coats I have, only one (come to think of it) has a plastic zipper, and not a huge zipper, at that; and it's a big bulky pullover deal that I never wear unless it's well below zero and nothing else will do.

But everyone else seems to be going for the big plastic zippers. Usually on coats made of some synthetic material, nylon or GoreTex or polyester or polyester fleece or whatever. Where's the satisfaction in that? Most of the time so far this season I've been sticking with my wool coat, which doesn't even have zippers, but buttons, as if it was still 1914.