The mannequin, in its modern form, started to appear on the high streets of London, Paris and New York in the 1870s and quickly became an essential part of any window display.
Mannequins have always been much more than an elaborate coat hanger parading the fashionable clothes of the day, but also mimicking the fashionable body shape of their era and appearing in displays that reflect the trend topics of the times.
First they have been modeled on royalty, film stars, musicians and fashion models, nowadays they primarily embody an ideal of beauty. They are an ever present feature of every high street and shopping centre in the developed world.
Many of the well known photographers of the 20th century (Lee Friedlander, Walker Evans, Vivian Maier, to name only three) have shot at least a few photos where mannequins can be seen.
Surprisingly, in our days, where photos are uploaded tsunami-like to various platforms, photos of this kind are seldom seen.
By the way, the photographer certainly faces interesting challenges when he devotes himself to this topic. Looking from the street into the shop window, he usually will see layer upon layer with varying intensities of light, the interior of the shop, the mannequins in the window display, the reflections of the street, the shop fronts opposite, and this mix of interior and exterior, of reflection and reality will in the end be visible in the photograph.
Attached you find a carefully selected collection of twenty photos, mostly taken
in 2019. Some are in color, some are monochrome, some are in landscape format, some are in portrait format and there is a broad range of different styles. [Official Website]
