MANNEQUIN MAKING

Manufacturing in China - An interesting factory tour of a mannequin and hanger factory who does business in China and supplies fashion markets around the world.

A successful synergy between advanced technology and a highly specialized craftwork is the main characteristic of the production system for developing mannequins.

After moulding, each part of the mannequin is subjected to a careful work of assembling, plastering, smoothing and finishing, necessary to ensure the best quality standards of the finished product.

The painting department is equipped to make any kind of finishing: matt, glossy, semi-glossy, satin, and other countless special effects, such as the Prisma, that gives iridescent shades, and the brand new marble, carbon fibre, wood and root effects.

ALVALON: THE MOST SOPHISTICATED PRODUCTION

Alavnon uses and links cutting-edge technology to create an innovative transformational process of mannequin production that results in a full service fit and sizing company that offers brands the elusive goal of determining a custom sizing standard for their brand and developing custom forms (that reflect their clientele) and pattern blocks to ensure quality and consistent fit for their product.

HOME-MADE MANNEQUIN

For those of you who are low on budget, or want to be creative and display your own clothes or make your own human simulations, here's a perfect way to do-it-yourself mannequin.

MANNEQUIN SPIES!

In Italy, mannequin making company Almax is producing mannequins meant to not only catch the client’s eyes, but that literaly watch your every move.  Mannequins equipped with technology that is used to identify criminals at airports, are now being used in stores to allow retailers to glean demographic data and shopping patterns from customers as they move through stores, much as online merchants do.

The EyeSee Mannequin looks ordinary enough on the outside, with its slender polystyrene frame, blank face, and improbable poses. But inside, it’s no dummy. A camera in one eye feeds data into demographic-profiling software to determine the age, gender, and race of possible customers. 

That’s an innovative and invasive way to start with prospective design!

MANNEQUIN MODELING

Software for modeling mannequins and human figures have been very successful.  On the web we can find extensive anthropometric databases of men, women and children modeling programs to add as human prototypes for using in rendering design and arquitecture projects.

In the ManneQuinPRO  10.2, there are five levels of mannequin representation: mannequin, skeleton, HumanForm, robot, and stick figure.  It also includes articulated body within human ranges of motion, sophisticated 2D and 3D drawing/modeling tools, three-dimensional biomechanical predictions of the entire body, revised NIOSH Lifting Equation, frame-by-frame animation capabilities and animated walking and simulation.

Other human modeling software include 3dmax, blender, sketchup, sculptris and MakeHuman.

CONECPTUAL MANNEQUIN

PATHOLOGICAL MANNEQUINS

MANNEQUIN AS A FETISH

The desease where a person is pathologically attracted to dolls, statues or mannequins is called Agalmatophilia.  The attraction may include a desire for actual sexual contact with the object, a fantasy of having sexual (or non-sexual) encounters with an animate or inanimate instance of the preferred object, the act of watching encounters between such objects, or sexual pleasure gained from thoughts of being transformed or transforming another into the preferred object. 

  

 

Sexualised life-size dolls have extensively featured in the work of famous art photographers: 

        Hans Bellmer            Katan Amano      Morton Bartlett                 Ryoichi Yoshida

FEAR OF MANNEQUINS

Pediophobia is the fear of dolls or humanoid figures.  It is a phobia that causes anxiety disorders and can be associated with mannequins and dolls that range from old-fashioned china dolls and porcelain dolls to dolls that talk and move.

Left untreated, pediophobia can affect and impact on a person's life in quite major and sometimes devastating ways.  Sometimes, this fear can assume such overwhelming proportions that it seriously interferes with the individual's ability to function in a normal way.  A person fearful of store mannequins, may very well avoid shops selling clothing altogether.



MANNEQUINS IN ADVERTISMENT

Mannequins are also a great source of inspiration for advertisement techniques.  They are very used in this industry because they come in handy if compared to real life actor:  they are never late for work, they never forget their lines, they can’t get fired or show up with a hangover.  Mannequins are so much cheaper than rela people because they don’t need any catering service or make-up artists.  They never require haircuts, showers or places to sleep.

Coca-Cola

Mazda

Mercedes Benz

Old Navy

White Castle

Axe

Agent Provocateur

Tim Burton's Commercial

MANNEQUINS IN MILITARY

 BATTLE OF YONGQIU

Military use of mannequins is recorded amongst the ancient Chinese, such as at the Battle of Yongqiu.There, the Tang army (which was under attack) tied scarecrows to rope and lowered them down the walls of the castles. They were instantly targeted by archers. This served two purposes. The first was to lure the fire away from the Tang soldiers, and the second was to replenish the supply of arrows. 

Once the scarecrows were full of arrows, they would be pulled back up to the top, and the arrows would be reused by the archers. 

WORLD WAR I

Mannequins were also used in World War I, which was fought in many places with trench warfare, where each side had dug a large trench to stage attacks from. Typically, these battles were ongoing stalemates. 

The area between the trenches was called no man’s land, because running into it would be a guaranteed death. Mannequins were then employed to draw sniper fire so that enemy snipers could be targeted or allied units could move more safely.

SimMan 3G: THE MILITARY MANNEQUIN

This area of mannequin production for military and other forces for training, has elevated the quality of high-tech dummies that now serve as first-aid crash-test simulators that breathe, blink, cough, bleed, secrete liquids from the eyes, nose and mouth and even urinate as real persons.

SimMan 3G, is wireless, battery-operated and remote-controlled mannequin made to simulate a wide range of realistic combat medicine-scenarios.  If medics don’t stop the bleeding, SimMan 3G will die.  Computers monitor how medics react to simulations and the debriefing data helps them improve their performance.

A whole new level for dummies!!!