Some time ago I realised that I needed a display mannequin for my corsets and that it would also be fun to have a go at draping on the stand – a form of freestyle patterning also known as moulange – which requires a dress form to work on.

As I am a long-time DIY enthusiast my first port of call was good old Google, where I found myself falling down a digital rabbit hole filled with a veritable zoo of body-clones made with an enormous range of techniques and materials.

In between the blog posts, and tutorials on making dress forms and mannequins, there were snippets of historical and cultural interest which caught my eye, so I started reading a bit about the history of mannequins.

This article is the first of a series of three pieces which will summarise my mannequin quest for those of you who are interested in creating your own dress form or display mannequin.

This article will look at the history of the mannequin in its evolution from a functional dressmaking tool to a decorative aid for selling, and the effect of culture on the changing shape of the mannequin. I’ll dip briefly into what this might mean for our own body-cloning choices and then have a look at what kinds of mannequins are commercially available.

In my next article I will get down to practicalities, presenting a round-up of my favourite online tutorials for making your own mannequin or dress-form. I’ll discuss the different methods and consider how they might work in relation to corsetry, and I’ll include information on variations on the basic ideas which are explored in many blogs. I will take you through my experience of making one of the mannequins I talk about and reflect on the success of the project.

In my third article in this series I will be working with another DIY tutorial, using the same technique on a variety of different sized bodies to give you an idea of how adaptable the method is... and then adding to the process with a few improvements of my own!

And so, follow me dear reader as we delve into the wide world of clones and body-doubles that inhabit our shops, and soon, our studios….

 

Mannequins and Morals – The Body as a Cultural Icon

Display mannequins, as we know them today, are children of the relationship between technology and consumer culture – mannequins are physical expression of the cultural ideals and the technologies of their time. As technological advances change culture, so cultural change affects technological development in a continuous feedback loop.

It is obvious that industrial and technological developments will affect the materials and methods used to make mannequins. It is less immediately obvious that, by affecting all aspects of industrial societies, technology and industry change the way we live our lives and the spaces in which we live them. Every invention, from flush toilets to telephones and domestic sewing machines, changes the way we go through our lives - thereby changing our needs and interests. This means that technology changes not only how and from which materials mannequins are made, but also what form mannequins take and who and where they are used, as retailers alter their sales pitch to fit contemporary desires.

(For an example of this, think about the way mobile phones have changed the way we communicate with other people, and how this affects our relationships. Whether you buy a card or send a text to someone on their birthday, you can bet retailers are hoping to capitalise on your choices!)

Mannequins have become a classic tool used in marketing displays and because their changing shape reflects the social changes happening around them; a history of display mannequins is also, in many ways, a cultural history.

In our consumer culture, the body itself is a potent symbolic image of desire in both a material and a physical sense, and is used widely to promote the consumption of all kinds of products. The female body is used even more extensively than the male body, and so on a subconscious level has become representative of material desire and the perpetual need to ‘have more’.

Every time we create a representation of the body (whether we are making a corset, designing a mannequin or taking a photograph to use online) we do so within this cultural context. I think it is relevant for those of us who create artworks that are so body-conscious to be aware of the potential implications of our work and to think about why we are choosing to present the body the way we do.

In choosing to make our own dress forms/corsets/clothes we are already rejecting many of the subtle voices that are present in our lives, telling us to work harder and buy more mass-produced goods so we can fit in and measure up. I believe that this is one of the reasons that platforms like FR are so important – by sharing information and enabling us to create beautiful things at home we can resist the pressures of big business which are threatening our social and ecological environments.

We carry a lot of baggage about our bodies, not just about their size and shape, but about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ways to use them and about acceptable ways to show them. Mannequins are used to show us how retailers think we should be (or how they think we want to be), and so all of the dos and don’ts that cling to the body in the west are expressed in the mannequins that we see.

Mannequins are essentially just fancy clothes hangers, but because they replicate the body they are subject to the same cultural taboos as real bodies and can cause heated debate! For instance, in the early 1900s many people felt that mannequins were scandalous in their ‘indecent’ depiction of the body. Many stores in America were required to fully cover their windows while changing a mannequin’s clothes!

Because mannequins conform to the social ideals of their time, they are a pretty interesting reflection on the eras in which they were made. For instance, the low, prominent bust on mannequins of the Edwardian eras reflects the social idealisation of an older, maternal figure and a reverence for tradition.

In contrast, the more slender teens era silhouette represented a younger, more free-spirited ideal, in keeping with the influence of a younger, more liberated generation of women.

This freedom grew during WWI when women took over many of the previously masculine jobs (like farming and industrial work) left open by the men who left to fight in the war.

Stylised and willowy bodies reflected the easy-going twenties and thirties (for the wealthy at least – the economic troubles of the twenties and thirties meant that the vast majority of people had no money to spend on frivolous extras).

The burdens of WWII between 1939 and 1945 are reflected in the broader shoulders and strong, sometimes even masculine, figures of the era’s mannequins.

Before WWI & WWII it was widely considered unacceptable for women to work, which left many women entirely at the mercy of their husbands or male relations. When women again flooded the workforce during WWI and WWII, they embraced the economic freedom of working for themselves and this was reflected in less static mannequins which expressed more dynamic movement.

When WWII ended mannequins became noticeably curvaceous (in contrast to the lean willowy silhouettes of mannequins from the 1920s - 40s) as society longed for a softly feminine woman to mother it after the devastation of WWII, and through the uncertainly and tension of the Cold War.

The sexual revolution of the 1960s was reflected in the mannequins of the era, who suddenly grew nipples and went bra-less; enjoying the new freedoms women had acquired.

From the 60s onwards mannequins developed into what we are familiar with today. Sometimes faceless and modernist, sometimes superficially realistic (how many people do you know who look like a store mannequin?), most display mannequins are extremely thin, tall, and uniform with exaggerated proportions.

Some contemporary mannequin makers are responding to social shifts that call for them to more accurately reflect what people actually look like, but these are still the exception rather than the rule.

The racial tensions of the last century are also reflected in mannequins. As early as the 1920s mannequins with darker skin tone were produced – one was famously modelled on the sensational cabaret dancer Josephine Baker – but they didn’t become widely produced for decades to come and still seem to me in the minority, even in South Africa where the vast majority of the population are ‘of colour’.

Living in post-apartheid South Africa, with it’s history of vicious racial segregation and discrimination, I thought that our store mannequins would be representative of our varied epidermal colouring. But looking around the local mall I saw very few non-Caucasian mannequins, although it does have to be said that many displays used stylised mannequins which were racially- and often even gender-neutral.

As well as responding to dialogues on race and size, many mannequin manufacturers are beginning to respond to environmental pressures; looking for materials that are less ecologically unsound that fibreglass, which is still the material most commonly used for display mannequins.

Regardless of how they are made or what particular form they take, mannequins hold a powerful fascination for us and retailers are unlikely to retire them any time soon. Mannequins are a part of our visual language and so a mindfulness of their ideological symbolism is important if we are to be active contributors to our culture.

 

A Brief Overview of the Evolution of the Mannequin

One of the earliest recorded mannequins is a bust and torso of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, discovered in his tomb in 1922. Made from wood, the likeness is believed to have been used as a fitting model by Tutankhamun’s tailors and jewellers.

Display mannequins (as opposed to tailors dummies, which had been in use for far longer) initially appeared to model clothing for wealthy shoppers. The boom of the industrial revolution between 1760 and 1840 generated huge volumes of mass-produced clothing and a new market of middle-class shoppers, requiring larger shopping districts and stores.

These new shopping districts took full advantage of recent technological advances – installing large, newly manufactured steel window frames filled with the new plate glass to entice both the wealthy and the emerging middle classes who wondered past, eagerly pursuing the new craze for window-shopping.

The invention of the sewing machine and other technological advancements in the clothing industry led to a rapid expansion in clothing manufacture, creating a highly competitive market.

Producers and retailers became ever more inventive in presenting their wares to potential customers and by the mid-1800s the display mannequin had become central to the marketing, not only of clothing, but of a wide range of products which we might call ‘lifestyle accessories’ – everything from radios to lingerie (and of course corsets).

These early mannequins were essentially dress forms, usually headless and made from leather, wood, wire or papier-mâché.

Soon mannequin makers began creating detachable heads for these forms, often using the traditional medium of wax casting to create lifelike faces with glass eyes and wigs made from human hair. Wax mannequins went out of fashion when electric lights were installed, melting the wax heads and ruining the carefully composed tableaux.

Over time display mannequins came to be made largely from plaster, then from plastic in the 40s-50s and in the 60s from fibreglass, which has been the industry standard ever since.

The proportions of display mannequins have changed to reflect the ‘perfect woman’ of the era, from the slinky flappers of the 20s to the curvy Marilyns of the 50s and the waifish Twiggys of the 1960s.

The sexual revolution of the 1960s inspired a greater sense of bodily awareness, and mannequin makers and commercial retailers began using display mannequins with more anatomically realistic bodies. During the 70s stylised mannequins reprised some of the more anonymous features of early 20th century mannequins. These ‘egg head’ mannequins made a comeback in the 1980s and have been with us ever since.

The trend towards realism that began in the 1960s was reprised in the 1980s as mannequins developed backbones, bellybuttons and other more human features.

Contemporary fashions still lean heavily on featureless egg-head mannequins, but the market seems to be turning back towards more lifelike models. Another rising trend in mannequins is the representation of a wider range of bodies as social politics demands that manufacturers reject the ‘size-ism’ of abnormally thin mannequins. ‘Plus size’ mannequins are becoming more popular, appearing in a number of mainstream fashion stores. (The term ‘plus-size’ is used very loosely but is defined in America as sizes 16-24. However, many plus size models and store mannequins are only a size 12 or 14.)

As technology surges forwards it continues to affect the mannequins we see. Environmental pressures have led some manufacturers to investigate more ‘green’ materials - fibreglass is both toxic and non-biodegradable. New casting technologies lead to innovations in the  manufacturing processes which affect the variety of mannequins available and digital technologies are changing the way in which we ‘consume’ fashion, which is already changing the way mannequins are used. Follow this link for an interestingly high-tech use of a robotic mannequin in on-line shopping!

Exciting new technologies that I am keeping a close eye on include 3D scanning and printing – imagine stepping into a booth to scan your body and then pressing a button to print out and exact replica! 3D body scanning is already being used by retailers in South Africa to develop fitting models that reflect our specific physiognomy, but it may still be some time before the technology becomes accessible to us home-producers.

 

Bodies for Sale – Commercially Available Display Mannequins

There are many different kinds of mannequins out there today, made with any different manufacturing processes to service a variety of needs. A fairly random sampling might include these slightly funny-looking foam mannequins, more standard fibre glass mannequins, or vintage-style Victorian mannequins more familiar to us corset makers.

I also discovered that I have one of the leading international producers of fitting forms practically in my back garden, so I went to visit and have a look at some of their stock.

Figure Forms is a family run business that produces both traditional fibre-glass display mannequins and high end fitting forms. Fitting forms are tailors forms that are graded to different sizes so that big retailers can buy sets of their preferred sizes to send to their manufacturers. The manufactures then use the fitting forms to check the fit of their garments over a range of different sizes. By working this way retailers can buy garments from a number of producers and still have consistent sizing across all departments.

Because these forms are created to help fit a big range of garment sizes Figure Forms has a much larger range of body types available than I would have thought. Their prices aren’t even too outlandish considering the quality of the forms – the 38DD torso shown here was around R 5000 ($465/342 Euro) when I visited the factory earlier this year. (N.B. Prices are subject to change depending on exchange rates etc., but you can contact figure forms through their website for further information.)

I was very impressed with Figure Forms’ products – especially since they have a range of fitting forms made from a very dense foam which were great for lacing some of my corsets onto!

At the moment these forms are too expensive for me, so for now I will have to make do with whatever I can make myself. Fortunately this isn’t too much of a hardship as there are loads of options for DIY dress forms and mannequins.

Join me for my next article to explore some of these options and see how I do with trying one of them out!

 

 

add