DALLAS, Jun 21, 1999/ FW/ --- I Love Lucy, The Seven Year Itch, I've Got You Babe! Do these titles ring a bell? Of course.

Who can forget Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo?

Or Marilyn Monroe playing herself in the Seven Year Itch, her white skirt flying. Ah that famous pose!

How about Cher, notorious for with her outrageous clothes by Bob Mackie. I've Got You Babe! was Sonny & Cher's hit song.

All of them immortalized in fiberglass and paint with some bondo thrown in. And you can meet all of them at the Who's the Dummy: Defining Mannequins Exhibit at the FIT.

What's the fascination? is one of the seven questions about mannequins. This collection featured mannequins modeled from famous figures of pop culture.

Barbie and Ken as mannequins, even Ronald Reagan. Why did the artist create them out of fiberglass and not the traditional sculpting materials?

Is it art or is it commercialism? No one knows the answer. We have seen famous people featured in windows by Simon Doonan for Barney's, usually a parody, usually used to attract passersby. Hence, commercialism is a big aspect of making mannequins after famous personalities.

Yet, you cannot deny the art and the creativity that comes with it.

Walt Wilkey and Shelley Freeman, owners of the Mannequin Gallery in Burbank keep a stream of fiberglass bodies between their stores and their clients which include Tommy Hilfiger and Jay Leno.

In an inteview by Darrell Satzman for the Los Angeles Times, 1998, Walt Wilkey described making mannequins after famous people as a weired business. In that same article at the LA Times, Walt Wilkey quoted, "People ask us all the time if it's creepy working in here, but for us it's normal."

A commercial endevour, yes! An art, yes! The mannequin has created an ambiguous connection between art and commercialism.