Body Design, Variable Realisms: The Case of Female Fashion Mannequins

Abstract

Even in mannequins, realism is no single-faced puppet. Our ideas of what appears most real to us vary with the times, the technology available, and our recollections of realisms. The history of mannequin realism that follows is an attempt to pin down the give and take between succeeding ideas of what constitutes a believable reproduction of human presence. It is precisely the imperfections in realism and its relativism that make it a compelling aesthetic. Originating in the mid-eighteenth century, the dressmaker's is the most significant precursor to the realistic mannequin; the form is an exact model of a customer's measurements (or, later, in the age of ready-to-wear, of a standardized size) reproduced on a shaped torso which was used to fit clothing, freeing the customer from fittings. The most celebrated was that displayed by Count Dunin at the Great Exhibition of London in 1851. Dunin's mechanical figure was composed of 7,000 pieces of steel and copper connected by sliding metal tubes and wheels which could be made to expand or contract so as to the deformities or peculiarities of of any individual. The many articulated parts meant that the also could adopt virtually any position. Dunin's mechanical mannequin was the ultimate body surrogate for fittings, for it could be used as a tool not just for outfitting one individual but especially in cases where great numbers [were] to be provided for, as in the equipment of an army, or providing clothing for a distant colony. 2 Both Dunin's figure and the more conventional dressmaking forms prevalent during the nineteenth century were prized not for their capacity to represent character or human presence, but simply for replicating the measurements of a specific individual in a portable, constantly available form. There is no evidence that, in the creation of these figures, any attention was paid to capturing the likeness of the original model in any way that would have been significant beyond the needs of dressmaking. Even the perception of the needs of dressmaking was limited. Dressmakers' forms were not expected to account for postural idiosyncrasies, nor for the effects of motion on the fit of clothing. Because these were not even values for dressmaking, they had no place in the construction of models. Around 1840, dressmakers' forms began to be used to display as well as to construct clothing, 1 This article is adapted from Vital Mummies: Performance Design for the Show-Window Mannequin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). The author wishes to thank Yale University Press and to Jonathan Brent for permission to publish this adaptation. 2 See Marsha Bentley Hale, Future Mannequins: Past And Present Tense, Retail Attraction, 9 (March/April 1986): 39.