Mannequins…where do they come from?

When you look in shop windows do you ever really look at the mannequins wearing the clothes?  The tall, beautiful, serene, almost human, life sized mannequins.  Where do they come from?  How do mannequin makers decide on what face to give them, how long their legs should be, what their hands should look like, how they are posed? 

When I first came to London I was mesmerised by the mannequins.  I had never seen anything like the British mannequins.  They were so real and life like.  I imagined they had secret lives and when the shop shut they would run off in their fabulous clothes and party!

My very, very first modeling  job was as a real life mannequin in Washington DC.  Calling it a modelling  job is a bit grand as I was doing a friend a favour.  She was the manager of a Swedish home store and she was very creative and had great vision.  When she took the job she wanted to make a big statement so she asked me if I would sit in the window on a Saturday morning and not move.  I thought she was mad but was intrigued by the idea.  So we created a scene in the window with props from the store and I sat in the window creating a character within the setting.  It started slowly but before long many people gathered in front of the window.  I didn’t blink for ages to the point that my eyes would water and people thought I was crying!  I loved it.  And just when I had a lot of people watching, wondering if I was real…I would move and change position.  The reaction was wonderful…people would jump out of their skin and shout and run.  It became a regular gig and I ended up on the national news because it was the first time it was ever done.

Back to the 1980s.  I’m in London doing lots of fashion shows and have heard about a woman called Adel Rootstein.  Everyone loved Adel and she had the ground breaking idea to take real life models from the magazines, sculpt them from clay and turn them into mannequins.  Brilliant!  She was a visionary and when I saw her vans whizzing around London I set myself the goal of becoming one of her mannequins.  In the mid 80s Adel saw me in a Zandra Rhodes’ show and asked if I would like to sit and be sculpted for a mannequin.  I was ecstatic…my dream was coming true.  Her amazing sculptor, John Taylor, spent weeks sculpting me and I was launched in the new season’s collection, which was called Billy Blair and the Spectaculars.  It was spectacular!  What an honour, what a compliment.  I was in the company of many great model/mannequins such as Twiggy, Marie Helvin, Pat Cleveland, Erin O’Connor and many more.

 That’s me above and to the right.  My name is actually written on my butt so there is no chance of mistaking me for anyone else…as if!

So after all these years, I am still around and the best part is I don’t age and I don’t speak…a blessing for me and a blessing for others! 

The next time you see a fabulous, real life mannequin in a shop window…see if you can identify who the model is.  It could be Agyness Deyn, Erin O’Connor, Jade Parfitt or some other fabulous model past or present.

To find out more about Adel and her vision, follow this link http://www.rootstein.com/.

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