I remember the days when women used to complain about how unrealistically thin the store mannequins were. I personally never saw what the big deal was–I always saw mannequins for what they were, fake plastic things used to display clothes, end of story! But a lot of people found them to be quite offensive, which is why I was so surprised to hear about all the horrified reactions made caused by the new "fat" mannequins.
The buzz all started shortly after a picture of this particular obese mannequin (whose origin is unknown) surfaced the internet. It looks to me like folks just can't seem to make up their minds when it comes to these clothing displays. They're are either too thin or in this case, too big. Should we just do away completely with mannequins?
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Recently, I walked into a boutique in N.Y.C.'s Herald Square and noticed a few plus-sized mannequins displayed around the store. I remember thinking, "Hey, this is a pretty progressive move!" I thought this would be considered good news. No?
But the negative reactions caused by these newly obese mannequins, proves that the idea of skinny equaling beautiful is still very much ingrained in American's minds. We complain about super thin models and mannequins, but when the plus-sized ones hit the scene it suddenly makes everyone uncomfortable.
In all fairness, I do have to admit that unlike the mannequin dolls I recently saw at the Herald Square clothing store, this one is definitely a little strange looking. For one, the head is incredibly small and disproportionate to the rest of the body. And to top it off, it doesn't even have hair! The ones I saw were actually kind of cute and realistic looking, so I'm wondering how people have reacted to those.
Even so, mannequins don't by any means reflect reality, so I honestly don't even think it's worth all the controversy. If the idea of an obese mannequin upsets you, maybe there's a deeper issue here that needs to be addressed.
Doesn't it make sense to use overweight mannequins to model plus-size clothing? Wouldn't you be more offended if you saw the usual skinny mannequin displaying some of the plus-sized fashions? That's what I would think anyway. In the end, it's only fair to include plus-sized mannequins in the stores, especially if the store offers plus-sized clothes. But with that said, I really don't think mannequins are something worth getting all worked up about. And if it's going to be such a touchy subject, maybe we should get rid of them all. I definitely wouldn't miss them. Would you?
Image via imgur
