Essay on Mannequins

 Essay I wrote on the word Mannequin for my about clothes class. I LOVE Jean Rhys. 

“Years later, speaking to a Frenchman in Paris, I said, ‘I can abstract myself from my body.’ He looked so shocked that I asked if I was speaking bad French” - Jean Rhys

Jean Rhys, in her short story Mannequin, displays the paradox of the mannequin; the assertion of the human within the artificial. Unlike the plastic bodies currently used for dress display, the protagonist, Anna, works as a mannequin, modeling apparel for Parisian shoppers. She details the transformation of her coworkers into objects of exhibition; “There were twelve mannequins… six of them were lunching, the others still paraded, goddess-like, till their turn came for rest and refreshment. Each of the twelve was a distinct and separate type: each of the twelve knew her type and kept to it, practising rigidly in clothing, manner, voice and conversation”. Anna refers to her coworkers as mannequins, even in private, effectively dehumanizing the women in the manner required of the job. Their actions are described as embodying the idealized female forms they temporarily present themselves as; they “[parade]” around in a “goddess-like” manner, until their time for “rest and refreshment”, using feminine, sanitized language for their behavior. Subsequently, she details their non-individuality, while they are each “distinct” and “separate”, all the women can only exist as “types”, without variety or personhood. Momentarily the performance of this idealized femininity is alluded to, through their “practice” of the needed “clothing, manner, voice and conversation”. Rhys outlines the central paradox of mannequinism, the interplay between the plastic, the generic, the “type”, and the apparent humanic facets of their existence. Within the short story, this exchange is related to some universal feminine experience, that of being viewed as an object, while simultaneously claiming personhood. 

Storefront mannequins similarly meld the distinctions between the human and the artificial. Historically, the mannequin has alternated between an object solely used for clothing display, and an attempt to accurately represent the multifaceted nature of being. The dual origins of the mannequin itself embody this distinction; the earliest example of this mode of clothing display may have been the wax effigies of monarchs displayed after their passing. These figures, created to replace the embalmed body within a coffin, claim to accurately depict the unique details of these godly figures. Their specificity, and attempt at humanization, compromise their value; their use exists only in their assertion of personhood. The origin of the storefront mannequin, on the other hand, exists solely for the display of ready-made, depersonalized dress. Tailors, after the advent of the Industrial Revolution and standardized clothing sizes, created headless figures out of chicken wire for window display. These cyborg-like creatures disavowed specificity, instead hoping to abstract the human figure into the newly created standardized sizing. The modern mannequin seems to be a hodgepodge of these dual origins; their apparent plasticity and mass production is reminiscent of the tailors’ displays, while their differing gestures and humanic qualities are evocative of the monarch wax doll. The spectator is therefore left to view an abstracted, lifelike figure, simultaneously claiming and disavowing personhood. Within retail, the vagueness of the model allows the customer to place themselves in the position of the mannequin, imagining themselves donning the same dress. However, as the viewer themselves, they begin to simultaneously embody the spectator and object, the human and the plastic. 

This merging of spectator and object is dramatized within Virginia Woolf’s short story, The New Dress. Mabel, an insecure attendant of Mrs. Dalloway’s party, purchases a new, and out of fashion, dress for the occasion. Within the dressing room, while observing herself in the mirror, the dress allows her to embody a kind of wholeness previously unattainable; “there looked at her… charming girl, the core of herself, the soul of herself; and it was not vanity only, not only self-love that made her think it was good, tender, and true”. Mabel discovers the pleasure of embodying both spectator and object, staring at herself yet encountering a separate, “charming girl”. However, this dissociated existence simultaneously depicts the “core of herself”, or some universal truth only attainable through this merging of perspectives. The storefront mannequin ideally functions as the mode by which this fusion can be actualized. 

It is only within the non-personhood of the mannequin that this merging of self and other is found. Within Rhys’s story Mannequin, this status becomes permanent; “Anna, dressed in the black cotton, chemise-like garment of the mannequin off duty was trying to find her way along dark passages”. Anna, even outside of the realm of her work, can only exist as a “mannequin off duty”, or the simultaneous spectator and object. This status is implied to be that of all women, negotiating between their plasticity and personhood. 

Works Cited:

Rhys, Jean. "Mannequin." The Left Bank and Other Stories, W. W. Norton & Company, 1992, pp. 69-77.

Rhys, Jean. Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography. Constable and Company Ltd, 1979.

Sara K. Schneider, Design Issues, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 5-18 (14 pages)

https://doi.org/10.2307/1511936

Woolf, Virginia. "New Dress." Mrs. Dalloway's Party, Harcourt, Inc., 1973, pp. 98-102.

Trufelman, Avery. "Our Mannequins, Ourselves." Articles of Interest, Apple Podcasts, 10 May 2023.