FORMS VS MANNEQUINS

A beautiful battle of images

Linda Cahan

The image of your store starts in your windows and is defined by the forms or mannequins that display your beautiful dresses.

Your customers are women of all ages, sizes, shapes and personalities, while a mannequin can show only one type of woman in one size, one position, one age and one attitude. Finding the right mannequin to represent and attract all your customers is a real challenge yet; the right mannequin can establish the image of your store in the minds of your potential customers.

A high quality realistic mannequin that both reflects your image and gives your customers an image they want for themselves is well worth the effort.

When storeowners don’t want to deal with image issues they use dress forms for their merchandise. A form is essentially a headless mannequin and can be either a classic dressmakers dummy or a molded fiberglass female form.

Imagine you are a potential customer. You drive past a bridal store everyday on your way to work and they seem to have a lot of dresses lined up in the window on some type of forms. One day, out of curiosity, you check out a different store. As you drive up you see one mannequin in the window. She has dark hair in a chignon with a long veil trailing along the window floor. Her dress billows out beautifully while she stands in ladylike and refined position. She projects grace, beauty and poise and your desire is to look like her as you walk down the aisle.  That is the power of a good, realistic mannequin.  A bad one can look more like one of the cast in “March of the Penguins” or “Leaving Las Vegas.” If you plan to create your image starting in your window it pays (over and over) to invest in a great mannequin. Depending on your budget and the size of your window(s), have two or three. If you can’t do that all at once, add one a year. It’s fine to use forms inside the store.

Mannequins impact customers by giving them a look to aspire to. Basic forms show just the clothing without imparting a feeling or image. The more interesting the form, the more chance you have to create an image. If your realistic mannequin looks cheap it will reflect directly onto the merchandise. If the form is tacky, so is the dress in the eyes of your customer.

Mannequins and forms must be perfect. When you change dresses consider keeping a pair of white gloves handy so your fingerprints don’t mar the painted surfaces.

You have a dilemma. You just found a few used mannequins at a great price. The only problem is that their positions and/or faces aren’t exactly what you had hoped for. Don’t buy them! The only great buys are ones that will strengthen sales. If the mannequins don’t fit your image or needs, they are a waste of money. Another dilemma: You’ve come across a mannequin that is perfect in all ways – she’s pretty, has a great attitude, her position is graceful and will fit all your merchandise and she is standing up well. The problem is that she’s pretty banged up, needs a paint job and a finger is missing. If you can get her for $200 or less, buy her!!! There are excellent mannequin refinishing houses that can make her look new again. The face and position are the two things that can’t be redone and a really good mannequin will cost a minimum of $400 and the ones you see in Saks Fifth Avenue, Neimans and Nordstroms go for a minimum of $1000 each.

Remember, your merchandise will be unconsciously judged by the quality of what it’s displayed on. Old, ugly, dirty or damaged will reflect right back on the gown.

Mike Davis of Manne-King says that the bread and butter of his enormous range of forms and mannequins are the jersey covered ladies dress forms (style # 108SB-C is the most popular.) The trend, according to Mike, is for stores to put more emphasis on the bases of the forms. The most popular is chrome metal replacing the old-fashioned wood stands. The eye-catching shiny chrome adds sparkle to the form. Many of the stands Mike carries are made in the USA and have wheels or casters optional. Shapes include oval, rectangular and round. Manne-King also carries some ornate looks as well as a lovely selection of frosted plate glass bases.

How do you know when it’s time to refurbish your forms and mannequins?

Dirt can be cleaned off with a gentle cleanser and a soft rag and wigs can always be cleaned or replaced. But, if your mannequin is swaying like a drunken bridesmaid, if a hand or fingers are missing, if there are scrapes and scratches along her exposed arms, neck or face or if she looks in any way beat up – don’t wait until she looks worse. She’s already hurting your image and sales.

What if you’d prefer to not use forms or mannequins. Hangers have been working just fine, thank you! A quick story: I was consulting for a chain of stores in the Pacific Northwest many years ago and they were in Chapter Eleven. I was asked to transform one store to see if improved visual merchandising would help the sales. There were no forms or mannequins in the (mainly clothing) store.) I purchased and placed about 15 forms throughout the women’s clothing departments. Three days later the first set of complaints came in – the sales people were annoyed that they had to keep changing the forms as the clothing was selling right off their backs. Oh dear! This certainly was part of the reason the company was in Chapter 11. The last I heard, selling is a big part of the retail experience.

Ultimately, the choice between realistic mannequins and forms is up to you, your image and budget. The plus of realistic mannequins in your windows is that they give you the ability to tell better stories. Forms need a lot of fussing with to allow them to tell a story. In order for a form to look more human, it needs a head. If it’s headless, one needs to be created by suspending a veil over the torso where the head would sit. If you choose to do this, use two or three lengths of very thin fishing line so the veil doesn’t twirl around in the air, covering the invisible face of your form.

Realistic mannequins in the window combined with great forms on the selling floor are an excellent visual presentation combination. Know you image and your customer and from there, deciding how to work with mannequins and forms will be much easier.

The vendors listed below are just a few of the companies offering a combination of mannequins and forms that are unlike any you’ve seen in the Redwing catalog.