Have you noticed something different about department stores lately? Like the fact that there are lots and lots of familiar-looking mannequins crowding the floors.
Gone are the pale, sexless figures we’ve seen over the last four or so years.
Today you’re more likely to see mannequins that look like supermodels such as Kirsty Hume or celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy.
A few month ago, a window-shopper even called Bloomie’s to say she liked the mannequin that had been made up to look like Paltrow. “I looked, and I didn’t make the association,” says Michael Fisher, the store’s creative director of visual marketing.
“But everyone else [I asked] believed it was her.”
The reason for the new emphasis on all-year-round window-dressing is to beat online retailers.
Window-dressers can create eye-catching displays that just can’t be duplicated on a computer screen.
Jason Weinfeld, vice president of public relations at Barneys, says he even gets phone calls from people claiming that a mannequin in a window has “spoken” to them in a personal way.
Below, we introduce modern mannequins.
At right, we hear what you’ve got to say about them.