Mar 28, 2000 / FW/ --- The headless mannequin is an odd creature, void of personality except for body attitude.

Many seen in display windows today are even void of that, very wooden in attitude with abstract shapes.

As I travel from the California Coast on through Europe I see that Headless Mannequins are a major trend in Beverly Hills, Zurich, Munich and Prague.

Wherever I go there are mannequins with stubs of necks sticking up from their fiberglass or fabric covered bodies.

On the practical side, there is no need to deal with make-up and hair. Then of course with androgynous fashion – jeans, T-shirt, sweatshirts and the like, the mannequins present an image of uniformity.

Headlessness maybe looked on as the ultimate political correctness, we are all the same, headless, but all the same.

Next thing you know, we will have politically correct, headless dolls. Come to think of it, many little boys have created this look for their sisters over the years; there is not much new under the sun (except in technology).

Maybe being headless, the mannequins are being mindless too – Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

With the overload of data via TV, film, radio, magazines, newspaper and the Internet, this is a reflection of the need to sometimes just zone out, unplug or hang up as touched upon via Meg Ryan in the film, Hanging Up.

Headless mannequins are not necessarily sexless, as I found out last year when The Mannequin Museum received a donation of ten Headless, white fiberglass mannequins from Rene’s Van and Storage of Los Angeles, CA.

While going to collect, catalog and crate the ten headless mannequins, it turned out that five were female and five were male. Surprise! Surprise!

The females were slightly zaftig and curvaceous as opposed to the former anorexic look, complete with sculpted breasts.

The male figures were sculpted with perfect athletic tone, no overt male body parts, more discrete with the smooth but slightly bulky Speedo look.

If we look at headless mannequins from an historical perspective, the earliest were used as dress forms, or literally as clotheshorses for hanging up clothing of the wealthy, royalty and alike. They were the first type of mannequins used in department stores.

Saks Fifth Avenue of New York, in the 1930s stated that mannequins with heads were distasteful. Earlier, the artist Archipenko designed a mannequin for Saks Fifth Avenue complete with body and head; however, this was abstract.

It took Lester Gaba to design a figure known as Cynthia, before Saks condescended to having mannequins that resembled their clientele.

Some Ralph Lauren displays use a small headless child mannequin that has an antique quality. They appear to be based on figures originally manufactured in France by Siegel and Stockman, first known as Stockman Freres in the late 19th century and early 20th.

The original figures had fabric bodies, with articulated wooden hands and small iron feet to weigh them down.

There are advertisements for similar children mannequins in display magazines of the same time period from England as well. If the store proprietor chose, they could top the figures off with a papier-mâché head, complete with glass eyes.

The Mannequin Museum has one such head in its collection, dated as circa 1869. At least some headless mannequins had the option of not being sent to the guillotine or riding around in Ralph Lauren riding jackets like headless horsemen.

Today, while walking in Prague, Czech Republic, under a slight flurry of snow, past the high fashion boutiques of the lovely street Parazka, there was not one mannequin with a head. Headless! Headless! Headless!

Most of the headless mannequins were void of body attitude, stiff, straight, lifeless forms, yet some with great detail on their hands.

The displays themselves were very artistic, the store are beautifully restored historical buildings. The area is a delight to wander though even in a chilly flurry of snow.

But I am still curious why headless mannequins are so prevalent, not just here in Prague, but Los Angles, Zurich and Munich. What does it say about our societies?

Perhaps nothing, or perhaps it takes someone like Faith Popcorn and Lys Marigold, trend predictors and author of “Clicking” to understand this and put it into context with what is currently going on in the world.

Perhaps Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs and Steel, The Fates of Human Society, would have a theory of what this means. These are books I have been reading while traveling mindlessly on the trains, zoning out, unplugging, and hanging up. Headless in a sense, but enjoying it all, observing the cloning, the ethnicity, the longevity and heedlessness of mannequins in the Year 2000. Hold on to your head.