Real Women, Normal Curves, and the Making of the American Fashion Mannequin, 1932–1946 (2020)
Staiti, Alana (Author)
Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science, and Technology
Volume: 28
Issue: 4
Pages: 403-431
In the 1930s, American mannequin designers promoted a realistic style of mannequin modeled from the physical features of fashionably beautiful white women. Lester Gaba, an enterprising mannequin designer, argued that realism in display was needed to counteract the bizarre theatrics of pretentious surrealist-inspired window displays of the 1930s and early 1940s. In this period characterized by anxiety and uncertainty, the glamorous, lifelike mannequin became an active participant in American consumer culture. This article contextualizes that phenomenon, claiming that real and ideal bodies were at odds with one another in fashion discourse. Meanwhile, display professionals, fashion practitioners, and the mannequins themselves played crucial roles in articulating and reinforcing narrow understandings of beauty, while conflating norms and ideals in universal terms.
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