Mannequin

A mannequin (also called a manikin, dummy, lay figure or dress form) is an often articulated doll used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, windowdressers and others especially to display or fit clothing. The term is also used for life-sized dolls with simulated airways used in the teaching of first aid, CPR, and advanced airway management skills such as tracheal intubation and for human figures used in computer simulation to model the behavior of the human body. During the 1950s, mannequins were used in nuclear tests to help show the effects of nuclear weapons on humans.[1][2]

For other uses, see Mannequin (disambiguation).
Mannequins in a clothing shop in Canada
Mannequins in Chanel store, 31 Rue Cambon, Paris
A lay figure by Albrecht Dürer in the Prado Museum.

Mannequin comes from the French word mannequin, which had acquired the meaning "an artist's jointed model", which in turn came from the Flemish word manneken, meaning "little man, figurine".[3] In early use in the United Kingdom, it referred to fashion models themselves, the meaning as a dummy dating from the start of World War II.[4]

History

Shop mannequins are derived from dress forms used by fashion houses for dress making. The use of mannequins originated in the 15th century, when miniature "milliners' mannequins" were used to demonstrate fashions for customers.[5] Full-scale, wickerwork mannequins came into use in the mid-18th century.[5] Wirework mannequins were manufactured in Paris from 1835.[5]

Shop display

The first female mannequins, made of papier-mâché, were made in France in the mid-19th century.[5] Mannequins were later made of wax to produce a more lifelike appearance. In the 1920s, wax was supplanted by a more durable composite made with plaster.[6]

A mannequin outside a shop in North India.

Modern day mannequins are made from a variety of materials, the primary ones being fiberglass and plastic. The fiberglass mannequins are usually more expensive than the plastic ones, tend to be not as durable, but are significantly more impressive and realistic. Plastic mannequins, on the other hand, are a relatively new innovation in the mannequin field and are built to withstand the hustle of customer foot traffic usually witnessed in the store they are placed in.[7]

Mannequins are used primarily by retail stores as in-store displays or window decoration. However, many online sellers also use them to display their products for their product photos (as opposed to using a live model).[7] While the classic female mannequin has a smaller to average breast size, manufacturers are now selling “sexy/busty mannequins” and “voluptuous female mannequins” with 40DDs and Barbie doll-sized waists.[8]

Use by artists

Historically, artists have often used articulated mannequins, sometimes known as lay figures, as an aid in drawing draped figures. The advantage of this is that clothing or drapery arranged on a mannequin may be kept immobile for far longer than would be possible by using a living model.

Medical education
A baby medical simulation mannequin

Ivory manikins were used by doctors in the 17th-century to study medical anatomy and as a teaching aid for pregnancy and childbirth. Each figure could be opened up to reveal internal organs and sometimes fetuses. There are only 180 known surviving ancient medical manikins worldwide.[9]

Today, medical simulation mannequins, models or related artefacts such as SimMan,[10] the Transparent Anatomical Manikin or Harvey[11] are widely used in medical education.[12] These are sometimes also referred to as virtual patients. The term manikin refers exclusively to these types of models, though mannequin is often also used.

In first aid courses, manikins may be used to demonstrate methods of giving first aid (e.g., resuscitation). Fire and coastguard services use mannequins to practice life-saving procedures. The mannequins have similar weight distribution to a human. Special obese mannequins and horse mannequins have also been made for similar purposes.

Over-reliance on mass-produced mannequins has been criticized for teaching medical students a hypothetical "average" that does not help them identify or understand the significant amount of normal variation seen in the real world.[13]

A wooden mannequin
Mannequins in a clothing shop in Indonesia

Mannequins were a frequent motif in the works many early 20th-century artists, notably the Metaphysical painters Giorgio de Chirico, Alberto Savinio and Carlo Carrà.[14][15] Shop windows displaying mannequins were a frequent photographic subject for Eugene Atget.[6]

Mannequins are a common theme in horror and science fiction. Mannequins can be disturbing (perhaps due in part to the uncanny valley effect), especially when not fully assembled. The Twilight Zone episode "The After Hours" (1960) involves mannequins taking turns living in the real world as people. In the Doctor Who serial Spearhead from Space (1970), an alien intelligence attempts to take over Earth with killer plastic mannequins called Autons.[16][17] Mannequins come to life and attack the living in "The Trevi Collection" (episode 14 of the television series Kolchak: The Night Stalker). Abandoned nuclear test sites consisting of entire towns populated by mannequins appear in such films as Kalifornia (1993), Mulholland Falls (1996), and the remake of The Hills Have Eyes (2006).

The romantic comedy film Mannequin (1987) is a story of a window dresser (played by Andrew McCarthy) who falls in love with a mannequin that comes to life (played by Kim Cattrall).[18]

A family of mannequins pose for a photograph

The cast of the satirical Japanese television series The Fuccons/Oh! Mikey consists entirely of inanimate mannequins with voices dubbed in.

Four mannequins can be seen on the cover of the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles. All were wax dummies modeled after the members of the band.

The music video for the hit single "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." by a-ha features the band performing in a church full of mannequins.

Commercials for the clothing store Old Navy sometimes use inanimate mannequins with voices dubbed in.

Al Snow had/has a sidekick/tag-team partner/opponent named "Head" that was a long haired female mannequin head. In addition to being a one-time WWE Hardcore Champion, Head was often used as a weapon or spoken to as a moral compass.

A pop duo with multiple electronic-style songs consisting of robotic mannequins, known as Far East Mention Mannequins.

Military use

Military use of mannequins is recorded amongst the ancient Chinese, such as at the Battle of Yongqiu. The besieged Tang army lowered scarecrows down the walls of their castles to lure the fire of the enemy arrows. In this way, they renewed their supplies of arrows. Dummies were also used in the trenches in World War I to lure enemy snipers away from the soldiers.[19]

A CIA report describes the use of a mannequin ("Jack-in-the-Box") as a countersurveillance measure, intended to make it more difficult for the host country's counterintelligence to track the movement of CIA agents posing as diplomats. A "Jack-in-the-Box" – a mannequin representing the upper half of a human – would quickly replace a CIA agent after he left the car driven by another agent and walked away, so that any counterintelligence officers monitoring the agent's car would believe that he was still in the car.[20]

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See also

References
  1. "Nuclear Test Mannequins". Seattle Times Trinity Web. Seattle Times Company. 1995.
  2. Trivedi, Bijal P. (15 July 2002). "Archaeologists Explore Cold War Nuclear Test Site". National Geographic News.
  3. "mannequin". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Houghton Mifflin Company. 2004. Retrieved 2009-08-07.
  4. 1902 Pall Mall Mag. XXVII. 119 Another salon ornamented with tall mirrors in which were reflected the slender elegant figures of several mannequins, most of them exceedingly pretty and all arrayed in magnificent dresses... 1939 M. B. Picken Lang. Fashion 97/2 Mannequin model of human figure for display of garments, hats, furs, etc. "mannequin". Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. September 2005. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  5. Steele, Valerie (ed.). Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion. Vol. 2. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2005. p. 377
  6. Steele, Valerie (ed.). Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion. Vol. 2. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2005. p. 379
  7. The Mannequin Guide and The Ultimate Visual Guide to Choosing the Right Mannequin by The Shop Company
  8. Dr. Ted Eisenberg and Joyce K. Eisenberg, ‘’The Scoop on Breasts: A Plastic Surgeon Busts the Myths,’’ Incompra Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-9857249-3-1
  9. Jennifer Ouellette (27 Nov 2019). "CT scans confirm 17th-century medical mannikins are mostly made of ivory". ars Technica.
  10. "SimMan". Laerdal.
  11. "Harvey: Major Changes". Gordon Center for Research in Medical Education. Archived from the original on 2007-03-28.
  12. Cooper Jeffery B, Taqueti VR (December 2008). "A brief history of the development of mannequin simulators for clinical education and training". Postgrad Med J. 84 (997): 563–570. doi:10.1136/qshc.2004.009886. PMID 19103813. Retrieved 2011-05-24.
  13. Jacobson, Ella (20 May 2019). "Too Human". Real Life. Retrieved 2019-05-27.
  14. Holzhey, Magdalena. 2005. Giorgio de Chirico 1888–1978 the modern myth. Koln: Taschen. pp. 42–43. ISBN 3-8228-4152-8
    • Cowling, Elizabeth; Mundy, Jennifer. 1990. On Classic Ground: Picasso, Léger, de Chirico and the New Classicism 1910-1930. London: Tate Gallery. p. 54. ISBN 1-85437-043-X
  16. "Spearhead from Space". BBC. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  17. Mulkern, Patrick (14 September 2009). "Spearhead from Space". Radio Times. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  18. McQuade, Dan (4 December 2013). "Why Mannequin Is the Best Movie Ever Made About Philadelphia". Philadelphia. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  19. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-10-27. Retrieved 2012-10-27.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  20. Royden, Barry G. (2003), "Tolkachev, A Worthy Successor to Penkovsky. An Exceptional Espionage Operation", Studies in Intelligence, 47 (3)

Further reading
  • The Recycling and Reuse of Mannequins - See 'Mannakin'
  • Gross, Kenneth - The Dream of the Moving Statue (Penn State Press 1992, ISBN 0-271-02900-5)
  • Verstappen, Stefan. The Thirty-six Strategies of Ancient China. 1999.
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