Mannequins –the magic behind fashion industry success

Fashion shows are a big hit everywhere you go around the world. From Universities and colleges to top fashion show organisers and fashion designers, Successful retail stores know that mannequins can greatly increase their sales.Mannequins add life to your store displays. They give your customer a tangible object that they can relate to.

A mannequin is an often articulated doll used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, and others especially to display or fit clothing.They’re dressed to impress and free for all to see on the on the display but each reflects the designer’s personality and philosophy.

Mannequins have fascinated mankind for centuries. Indeed, these glorified coat hangers have a genealogy that goes back to ancient times. However, today’s mannequins are neither as harshly angular as those of feminist era nor as bony as Twiggy.

Mannequins are, as always, a reflection of the ideal, not how we are but how we’d like to be — and it seems we’re not entirely ready for that. The creation of a mannequin is much like the creation of any fine sculpture, and then dresses it nicely to entice the shoppers.

What the buyers are looking for as they eat and drink their way from one showroom to another are mannequins with the right “attitude”.

It’s a word frequently used in the business, and it sums up a mannequin’s look: her pose, her mood, the message she sends to the public about the clothes she’s wearing and the store she’s in.

It’s the mannequin expert’s term for gestalt, and a buyer wants to make sure that gestalt is just right.  In the most recent times, there are more ethnic mannequins than in the past — Blacks, Orientals, Hispanics. And, like the population around them, some models are more mature.

The baby boomers are heading into their forties and fifties and mannequins have to reflect that. The days of thinking a woman is grandmotherly or matronly just because she’s fifty are gone.”

All told, there are about 200 mannequin manufacturers, worldwide. The leaders come out with a new line of mannequins — from six to twelve new poses — twice a year.

Mannequins are easily accessible online to Individuals- private customers, wholesalers and shop fitters, students studying fashion and textile degrees, fashion show organisers, Ethnic / Asian Clothing Boutiques and more.