May 07, 1999 / FW/ --- Written over 30 years ago, this article is as fresh as it is today if we change the dollar values mentioned in it. The article started this way:

"With the serenity born of good breeding and ample money, the lovely ladies in the expensive furs stand in the department store window, gazing pensively into the middle distance.

Across the road in the speciality shop, there is a group of party girls. Wearing red hair, green eye shadow and jaunty expressions, they appear to be having a marvelous time in their little black $19.95 dresses.

Next door, at the sportswear shop, the girls have long blonde hair, blue eyes and a thoughtful expression; they obviously attend good colleges and receive large clothing allowances.

The college girls back at the department store are much livelier, but in a wholesome way, of course.

They're all mannequins set up to sell clothes in the softest way possible. They make their pitch subliminally; the shopper who glances into the window immediately puts herself into the clothes, never realizing she's influenced by the glamorous creatures who wear them."

Change the dollar value to $99.95, and it will be as if the article was written recently in periodical.

The subliminal effects of mannequins in a store window or in a floor display continue to affect the shopper. Every Visual Merchandiser will tell you that whatever the mannequin is wearing, the outfit sells.

Retailers are very much aware of the impact of mannequins. Elisabeth, the boutique owned by Liz Claiborne Company features "plus sizes" mannequins, for the mere reason that Elisabeth clothes are plus sizes.

On the other hand, Macy's have their "own" mannequins - elegant and fashionably size 6, because of their clientele.

The idea is for the customers to identify themselves with the mannequins.

"Mannequins are worth every dime of the thousands of dollars the department stores spend on them each year, or the $100 the small-town merchant occasionally puts out.

For Mannequins do sell clothes. Women seldom pay much conscious attention to mannequins' faces, yet display people find that a dress worn by an attractive mannequin will outsell the same dress on a dowdy mannequin that has seen better days.

A bolt of yard goods can lie on the same counter for months; make up a dress of it, put it on a mannequin, and the cloth can sell out in practically no time."

Again, Jocelyn Dingman is right on the mark with this one, even today. Average cost of a mannequin today ranges from US$700 to US$1000. Retailers still buy them, and the mannequin industry is healthy.

Like the businesses of today, some of the smaller firms have been gobbled up by the bigger firms. But it is not because the market has waned. It is more of the business world trend of conglomeration.

Mannequins do not sell clothes by accident. The magic of the mannequin is created by Visual Merchandisers. It is them who change the looks of mannequins to suit the occassion.

Window Dressers put mannequins in a "scenario", almost a tableau, wherein the actors are frozen in time. That is what the customers see, and that is what attracts them.

The mannequins under the care of savvy visual merchandisers make the perfect plastic sales people.