Collecting Decorative Mannequins and Dummies
We are most familiar with mannequins as tools for selling products, but they have always been used for other purposes. Look in a large art supply and crafts store, and you’ll probably find artists’ dummies about a foot high and articulated mannequins which are used to help artists correctly model the human form in pencil, ink or paint. Commercial software like Poser duplicates this function, but in the digital realm. There are also the mannequins that carry out some person’s whimsy such as the larger-than-life Peanuts characters that were recently placed in public places around creator Charles Schultz’s hometown or the display mannequin that highlights a pub or a club and no doubt gives nervous guys something else to chat with women about besides the weather.
Mannequins for Ornamentation
Still another type of decorative mannequin can be found in homes. These are creations which, being of practical utility or not, are attractive enough to display and use as ornamentation. These might include something like an fetching dress mannequin posed in period clothing, standing in a corner, or a caryatid-like construction holding aloft a lamp. Another example would be the mannequin dressed in the clothes its owner was wearing during his heyday - say, a retired military officer with a small display to commemorate his service.
What is This That I See Before Me?
Some people, in fact, collect mannequins for themselves. Some go for specific types. Others collect all of a particular era or a particular type. For instance, female mannequins made in the 1980s show how tall heels were during that decade or wire mannequins that were popular before the more realistic plaster forms began to supplant them. Some people collect adult mannequins, child mannequins or celebrity mannequins. Still others are partial to hair mannequins to display different hairdos and/or wigs. But some people can’t stand being around something so life-like yet inanimate. This is probably explained by the Uncanny Valley effect as stated in 1982 by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori - the apparent humanity of mannequins leads us to empathize with them, but when the simulation reaches a certain point, some people can’t help but feel that something is just not right. That’s what the Uncanny Valley is about.
Speaking of robots, one could probably consider them the descendants of those first lay figures. There are already robotic mannequins that react to onlookers. Maybe we’ll soon see those store windows alive with battery-powered movement, silently showing us another reflection of ourselves.
Posted in Mannequins