These mannequins are wonderful creatures — sorry, I meant creations. But, no, wait. Calling them even creatures won’t be entirely wrong. After all, they look no less real than human beings.
As a matter of fact, I feel that were it possible, I would say ‘Hats off’ to whoever created these male and female life size dummies.
Right from my younger days I have been seeing mannequins adorning showcases or entrances of big clothing stores draped in all kinds of garments, mainly saris. But they used to be few.
However, with the passage of time, the trend caught on and today there is hardly any garment shop that does not have these pretty female and male figures displaying the stuff for sale.
Over the years, mannequins have undergone a significant transformation. Earlier, they appeared to be casually painted and looked bland. Some were mere busts or their smaller version used for displaying jewellery, accessories and the like. Today, the life sized ones are so nicely crafted that they look as if made of flesh and blood. Given wigs, eyebrows, eyelashes etc they would make some of the female onlookers jealous.
And males? Yes, the vulnerable ones might feel seduced by some. I confess that once, I also fell in love with a very pretty mannequin at a mall in Dubai. Whenever I went to that particular shopping centre, I made it a point to ‘visit’ her. I would leave the place only when the guard stared at me for too long to indicate that I had been there for too long.
There was a time when there used to be essentially adult dummies in my region in northern India. Later, kids also joined their mums and dads in the showcases. Now there are plenty of them, of all ages. Clad in attractive apparel, these li’l ones look so cute that I feel like pinching their rosy cheeks. How silly it would be of me to do that! For a moment, one forgets that they are made of clay and papier-mâché.
First encounter
I think I had developed a fancy for these sculptures of beauty in my childhood. My first encounter took place when I was accompanying my parents to a big garments store. While they walked towards the sales counter, I was attracted by the bewitching smile of a mannequin draped in an exquisite sari. I just stopped there, appreciating the beauty. I knew it was not the real thing, yet I could not resist the temptation of ‘feeling’ her arm when I was commandeered by my father to “come here”.
Mannequins are not uncommon these days and may not be enticing to an onlooker but think of those early days and of a boy having his first encounter with a pretty ‘damsel’ at that growing age!
In the years to come, I developed an obsession with mannequins — of course, the very charming ones. Whenever and wherever I had an occasion to find them, I would spend some time examining them in detail. Now I was a full grown man whom no guard dare ask to move on.
Thanks to the advent of the cell phone camera I have often got myself photographed with the beautiful ones without any fear of the society for, after all, these are lifeless creations.
Mannequins are now a universal phenomenon. No apparel shop can do without them. In some of the congested markets, male and female dummies have been made to stand even on pavements. Attired in their best, it is often difficult in a crowded market to distinguish these glamorous dummies from the living beings.
Embarrassing moment
One evening during a weekly bazaar, I saw a man, who had a brush with a mannequin, saying ‘Sorry” to it only to realise his folly the next moment. Embarrassed as he was, he hoped he had not been heard.
On another occasion, a precariously parked female dummy in the same crowded market fell on a man. The funny scene evoked laughter.
I have admired and even loved mannequins but now they make me fidgety.
— Lalit Raizada is a journalist based in India.
