Beware Beautiful Women: The 1920s shopwindow mannequin and a physiognomy of effacement
CLASS:Industry Article
ADTIME:2007-9-16-23:37
French advertising theory of the first decades of this century posited the shopwindow fashion mannequin as one of the most advanced and modern forms of publicit¨¦. The veristic wax dummies on display in barbershop windows and old¨Cfashioned shop vitrines were now outmoded (it was claimed), replaced by a more streamlined ¡®stylized¡¯ mannequin. Such modern mannequins were acknowledged as an intrinsic component of the fashion industry, and in particular of Parisian haute couture. This stylization of the female body took a variety of forms, the gilding in gold or silver of the mannequin¡¯s ¡®skin¡¯, for example. The most important distinguishing feature of the modern mannequin, however, was identified as its facelessness, an eradication which was deemed necessary to the effective display of haute-couture garments. This essay outlines the kinds of looking associated with the 1920s stylized mannequin in order to explore the significance of a gaze predicated on the emphatic erasure of the female face. It argues that the Surrealists¡¯ fascination with the shopwindow dummy reveals the extent to which advertising theory of the period (as manifested by these ¡®new¡¯ mannequins) was concerned not only with modes of marketing, but also with defining and orchestrating a modern urban gaze.
