Dress Mannequins for Tailors and Dressmakers
mannequins act in many roles in real life and fiction. Heavily-instrumented versions stand in for real people for tests that the latter would find fatal or at least a heavy burden to the insurance underwriter - think crash test dummies, the silent populace of towns built just so scientists could study them being destroyed in nuclear blasts, and Buster from the popular Discovery Channel series Mythbusters. In the Silent Hill series of video games, they form a convenient substitute to human enemies, suffer from depredations and respond as if they were alive. There are stories of mannequins which come to life and act either as villains or heroes - the movie Mannequin starred lovely Kim Catrall as Andrew McCarthy’s come-alive-at-night love interest. In retail stores, display mannequins of every type, from adult mannequins to child mannequins, both male mannequins and female mannequins, model clothing and accessories, helping drive a multibillion dollar global industry that fulfills one of mankind’s most basic needs. There are also jewelry mannequins and hair mannequins that serve a similar purpose.
What’s a Dress Mannequin?
But the type of mannequin that has probably been around the longest is the dress mannequin. Originating from a simple wooden form in antiquity, in the Middle Ages it was designed as a face- and time-saving implement for aristocrats and their clothes makers. Fitting clothes to the dress form replaced trying them out on the noble and possibly incurring their fickle wrath with an accidental pin prick.
The fashion doll, once used by Henry IV to keep his fiancée Marie de Medici abreast of the latest trends in Parisian haute couture, was in existence in the 1300s and became popular in the 1700s as a way of spreading what was in vogue. It is generally acknowledged to be the forerunner of the mannequin as it is now, but served the additional purposes of being a pattern and of sewing instruction manual, all rolled into one package that could be as small as an inch or be life-size. It is ironic that no examples of this plaything of the nobility and merchant class exist today.
Future Function of Mannequins
Today, virtual mannequins are supplementing and, in some cases, supplanting real mannequins. A virtual reality mannequin created by the Jaguar Formula 1 racing team using a system known as JACK, has enabled them to better design their cars for driver fit and safety and also to allow their crew to service it faster. Doing this saves a lot of money because everything can be tested inside a computer before the costly step of manufacturing prototypes is done. Virtual mannequins also help customers in Japan with picking out and fitting a formal kimono by letting them see what the final product would look like without having to undertake the hour-long process of putting it on.
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