Who You Calling Dummy?

In a factory in west London lie the body parts of some of the most beautiful women - and men - of the the past half century. It’s home to the limbs of models Erin O’Connor, Kate Moss, Karen, Mulder, Dianne Brill, Yasmin Le Bon and Twiggy; a place where Joan Collins and Joanna Lumley have pouted and preened; and where singers Sandie Shaw and Elaine Paige rubbed cold shoulders with Mike D’Abo, lead vocalist from mod hipsters Manfred Mann. Even a swaggering Lord Litchfield could be found here. The factory is that of Adel Rootstein, mannequin maker and trendsetter, whose influence in visual merchandising takes in the Swinging Sixties and the power-dressing 1980s, changing, through her mannequins, the way we buy fashion.

Back in the 1960s Rootstein brought personality to the ‘dummies’ in shop window displays. Rootstein’s mannequins, modeled on real-life icons of style and beauty, bridged the gap between what customers saw in glossy fashion magazines and what they saw in shop windows. Her ‘Model Girl’ collection of clay mannequins were to the standardised, identikit dummies of the British high street what the vibrant 1960s were to the staid, conservative world of the post-war era. Before long, a Rootstein mannequin named ‘Twiggy’ brought traffic to a virtual standstill at the SAKS store on Fifth Avenue, New York, as her real-life model counterpart joined her in the shop window. (No, Kate Moss’s launch of her clothing range, posing in the window of TopShop, wasn’t the first time this had been done.)

Mannequins reflect the era in which they are created. Their shape and pose, their facial expressions and physical size all say something about the world that has made them. They reveal contemporary attitudes towards body shape and are an embodiment of our social and cultural history as much as the clothes that hang from their shoulders and hips - and they explore our notions of what constitutes beauty, style and desire. Their design is the result of a complex interplay of factors: the careful choice of model on which they are based; the current commercial climate in fashion retail; the artistic ideals of their creator; and the manufacturing materials and technology available. It’s not really an industry for dummies at all.

The word ‘mannequin’ is derived from the Dutch, ‘manikin’, meaning ‘little man’ and over time it has described a number of different things: the human-shaped wooden models used by artists; the dressmaker’s assistants who would wear new costumes to display them for sale; and the real-life models on the fashion runway. Today, while the general public usually sees mannequins in shop windows and displays, they are also made for many other purposes - as actors’ doubles, crash test dummies and for teaching anatomy. But it is of course the world of the fashion mannequin that has been most alive to changes in popular culture. The mannequins of this decade - tall, slender, poised and with that blank expression so redolent of the catwalk - are, for example, a far cry from the post-war mannequins of the 1940s and 1950s, which were in general much shorter and often smiling.

Human-shaped models used for dress-making have been around almost since the dawn of time, especially in affluent cultures. Indeed, a wooden model of a torso was found nearby a clothing chest when King Tutankhamun’s ancient Egyptian tomb was opened in 1922. During the Middle Ages, life-size human ‘dress forms’ were tailored to the precise measurements of Europe’s royals, so that clothes could be made without their being in attendance or prodded with pins. In the late 16th century, Henry IV of France sent mini mannequins dressed in the latest French fashions to his fiancée, Marie de Medici, to keep her knowledgeable of what was in vogue. These ‘fashion dolls’ became popular in the years that followed.

Dress forms to aid tailors and dressmakers became more commonplace during the industrial revolution, when the greater affordability of cloth made new fashions more accessible. Other technological advances also brought changes. By the 1880s it had become possible to manufacture large plates of glass - a pre-requisite, of course, for modern shop windows. Larger windows let more light in-store, but shopkeepers soon realised their potential as a space to advertise their wares. The ‘display forms’ that we recognise as today’s stylised fashion mannequins were soon in demand as window dressing became an art in itself. In the arcades of the Victorian era, window shopping became a popular pastime.

The mannequins of the late 19th century were often made of wax, wicker, wire and leather. Reflecting the times’ notions of beauty, female forms had full bosoms and usually came in only three poses: left foot forward, right foot forward or feet together. To help balance the mannequin and provide support, those feet were cast in iron. At once cumbersome and delicate, the mannequins could weigh in at over 300lbs while the wax they were formed with would often begin to melt under the hot filaments of the window lights. Nevertheless, mannequins added a sense of spectacle to the shopping experience, bringing in money, and were highly prized. Sculptors were soon in demand to create more lifelike dummies. Heads and torsos began to be sculpted in one piece, which meant heads could be cocked at a jaunty angle, and hands and limbs were positioned to illustrate a mood or story. And yet the mannequins’ faces remained blankly inexpressive: beady glass eyes peering darkly from behind a mask of inscrutability.

In recent decades, mannequins have continued to reflect the cultural pre-occupations of the times. Grunge brought the waif and tattoos to the design of mannequins; improved representation of ethnic diversity brought a wider range of skin colour tones and body shapes; and even the ‘tweeny’ market for fashion had its influence, with mannequins introduced that were based on child-like Manga comic book figures and featuring bright wigs...

One of the earliest ventures into facial expression came from a French mannequin maker, Pierre Imans, whose late 19th-century female forms featured a heavy brow, doe eyes and full, pursed lips. Used to sell lingerie in shop windows they were considered coy, suggestive and even rather racy. Within two decades, some-thing else had left its mark on the modern mannequin: the First World War. With women filling traditionally male roles in industry while men were away fighting, as well as the rise of the suffrage move-ment, new female mannequins began to engender a vigorous and more liberated sense of womanhood, with added attitude in their poses and facial expressions. Although Art Deco briefly brought a clean, uniform modernity to their design, the idea that a mannequin was a bland monotype was on the wane and the journey from ‘wooden dummy’ to mannequin as fictional character was well under way. In the 1920s, the French Wax Figures Co introduced a new sultry take on the mannequin, with heavily made-up faces, and the burgeoning film industry saw mannequins first modeled to look like stars of the silver screen. The development of papier mach mannequins also greatly reduced a mannequin’s weight - although many were ruined if windows let in rain.

In the 1930s, a designer called Lester Gaba based a new mannequin on the socialites of the day. Made from plaster of Paris and depicted sitting with an elbow on her knees and a cigarette in her hand, he named his great work ‘Cynthia’. So enamoured was he with her that she accompanied him around New York - to the opera and the Stork Club. Gaba was not the only one to be infatuated. Cartier and Tiffany sent her jewellery and couturiers their latest fashions. A whole host of ‘Gaba Girls’ were to follow.

The new plaster figures of the 1930s, like Gaba’s, reduced the weight of the average mannequin from around 200lbs to 25lbs. Portability made them a more desirable commodity and the range of styles available broadened to meet demand. Characterisation of female mannequins took in cool sophistication, woman of the world, visions of chaste purity and what were often termed ‘pert and perky dolls’. Male mannequins of the time depicted members of an exclusive private club, perhaps talking business deals or relaxing with a cigar or a Scotch.

During World War II the rationing of materials meant mannequins became shorter and the clothes they wore more workaday. Practicality replaced the aesthe-tics of glamour and fashion. The end of conflict also influenced window displays greatly, with homely scenes of familial contentment replacing the cocktail bar. Male mannequins smoked pipes - as aspiration gave way to a social realism where expressions were almost uniformly happy. Mannequins were representing the lives and times, hopes and dreams of the real people who would gaze upon them from the street - a trend that was set to continue through to the present day.

And yet perhaps the biggest influence on mannequin design was still to come: pop culture. By the 1950s, increasing affluence, particularly in the US, along with the rise of consumerism and the leisure industry, was to preface the birth of the teenager. Fashion began to flirt with youth culture and American mannequin design was no different. Provocative and tough vampish looks appeared in shop windows alongside Lolita figures with bee-stung lips. Rebellion and liberation were becoming aspirational goals and fashion and rock ‘n’ roll became entwined.

In the 1960s, an essentially American vision of broad shouldered healthiness was countered in Britain by Adel Rootstein’s first forays into mannequin design. Root-stein’s mannequins epitomised the excitement of the times. Her mod influenced, slender and elegantly slouching designs encapsulated the cool glamour of the British pop scene and helped, along with Mary Quant, Jean Muir and David Bailey, to put London at the centre of the fashion universe. New technology also came to the fore, with fiberglass now used to mould ever more adaptable body shapes and elaborate poses.

In recent decades, while Rootstein’s revolutionary take on styling has brought a lasting glamour to window displays, mannequins have continued to reflect the cultural preoccupations of the times. Grunge brought the waif and tattoos to mannequin design; greater representation of ethnic diversity brought a wider range of skin colour tones and body shapes; and even the ‘tweeny’ market for fashion had its influence, with mannequins introduced that were based on child-like Manga comic book figures and featuring bright wigs. The end of the millennium saw futuristic clear mannequins made of Perspex become popular, while for Givenchy, Alexander McQueen lit mannequins from the inside with fibre optics. Fashions for low-slung denim and crop tops have also sent mannequin designers scuttling off to perfect parts of the anatomy that were hitherto rarely revealed in visual merchandising.

Rootstein’s waif-like Jodie Kidd manne-quin of the 1990s might have come to epitomize our expectations of the dummies we see in a fashion store window, but mannequins representing larger sizes have also been produced - and that doesn’t just mean a gamine model of Erin O’Connor standing 6 feet 6 inches in heels. Plus-size mannequins designed by Pucci pre-dated the debate about whether size zeros should be seen on the catwalk and mirrored Sophie Dahl’s arrival on the runway. Pucci also built mannequins modeled on a super-toned, athletic Christy Turlington, and constructed muscular male mannequins with figures more bodybuilder than a lithe Lord Litchfield. Even Rootstein has produced curvier designs used to show off the femininity of Agent Provocateur’s lingerie - it also briefly produced a range called Plump and Pretty. And yet it is, of course, the slim athletic designs that have stayed most popular and more accurately mirror current idealisations of the human body shape.

In the United States, where more people are of a larger size, some chain stores have adopted mannequins that feature a larger behind - a Beyoncé or J-Lo butt. And yet the trend has not caught on in Britain, where most fashion retailers are sticking to mannequins sized between an 8 and a 10. Mannequins are expensive, costing hundreds of pounds each, so changing a shop-full of display models to keep up with every celebrity inspired fashion fad or body shape is not always financially feasible.

A well-designed mannequin, like the iconic figures on which many of them are based, will usually remain in fashion for more than a couple of seasons. And yet, as with all fashion, they too will sooner or later begin to look dated. In the shop windows of the top fashion retailers, you will be hard pressed to catch sight of a mannequin, heavy with mascara and eyeliner, based on a power-dressing Joan Collins from the 1980s. How long before Kate and Erin go the same way? Martin Bewick