The Mannequins

“Your mannequin scared me when I came to get your trash this morning,” my co-worker, Amanda informed me yesterday. “He was standing in a different spot and wearing a green vest and I thought he was a real person!”

“I’m glad you didn’t think he was a burglar.” I responded, a mental picture forming of Amanda wildly swinging a trash can at the fiberglass mannequin. “I’d have come in and found mannequin pieces everywhere.”

Mannequins are a recent addition to my office. My job includes acquiring product photography, and if I can’t get images from the manufacturer, I have to shoot the photos myself.

Most clothing isn’t easy to photograph. It’s hard to get nice images by laying garments flat, and live models aren’t practical. That leaves mannequins.

Until recently, I had borrowed some mannequins from another department when I wanted to take pictures of clothing. But those mannequins were actually more like dressmaker’s forms, and they lacked heads, legs, and worst of all, arms.

I decided it was time to ask The Budget for new mannequins.

The Budget, (not to be confused with the newspaper) is our company’s annual plan that keeps our paychecks from bouncing. So I asked if The Budget would allow a pair of mannequins designed especially for product photography.

When my request was approved, I placed an order for a male and female mannequin with beautiful arms and part of their legs. (No heads. Heads and complete legs would have cost too much. The Budget has limits.)

The next day a co-worker sent an email. “There’s two boxes in the warehouse for you.”

It can’t be the mannequins, I thought. I ordered them from California only yesterday.

I went down to the warehouse, and sure enough, both mannequins had arrived in big cardboard boxes. I used a dolly to haul them to the elevator and up to my office.

“Dorcas,” I called to my co-worker. “Do you want to come help?”

“Sure,” said Dorcas, pushing away from her keyboard. Together we opened the boxes and dug through bubble wrap and scraps of foam to pull out the gleaming white mannequin body parts. We put the stands together and set the mannequins upright.

“Look, the arms come apart, so you can do short sleeves or long sleeves.”

“You can remove part of the neck for invisible mannequin photography— saves time in Photoshop.”

“The arms attach by magnets.”

When the two mannequins were complete, we stood back to admire our work, then pushed the mannequins to the back corner of my office. Mr. Mannequin’s stand has wheels with brakes. Mrs. Mannequin’s stand doesn’t have wheels, but she’s not as heavy as Mr. Mannequin, so she’s easier to move.

“What are you going to name them?” asked Dorcas.

“I haven’t decided. I want to think about it carefully.”

This week, I got a chance to use Mr. Mannequin. When I tried to put a shirt on him, I realized shirts that fit at the waist didn’t fit across the chest.

My co-worker chuckled, “This poor man spends too much time at the gym and not enough time eating.”

I found an extra large shirt and pinned clothespins on the back to make the waist fit better. “Now he looks like a porcupine!” laughed my boss.

“Well, it won’t show in the picture.” I positioned the lights, set up my tripod, and adjusted my camera settings. Soon I had a new batch of product photos and Mr. Mannequin was back in the corner of my office. A few hours after posting images of clothing worn by the mannequin, we made our first sale. Mr. Mannequin is beginning to earn his keep!

Amanda was willing to pose with the mannequins for this blog, so that’s her you see in the photo. Hopefully the mannequins won’t scare her again. They sometimes startle me, too. My boss told me when he worked in retail, the sales clerks entertained themselves by hiding mannequin parts in unlikely places for co-workers to find.

I guess it says something about our humanness that we find life-like mannequins a little disturbing. It says something else that we design mannequins so unrealistic that normal clothing doesn’t fit.

I still haven’t named the mannequins. Maybe next week, when I’m on vacation in Florida, I can think of two good names.

Any suggestions for names? Please leave them in the comments!