Man oh mannequin

I've always been a little weirded out by shop mannequins.  And if you're honest with yourself you've probably felt their cold, inhuman gaze once or twice and felt a chill run down your spine.  Am I right?

Romps like the eighties movie starring a pre-Sex and the City Kim Catrall did nothing to ease my discomfort.  A lady mannequin that comes to life, you say?  When no one is watching?  How positively delightful.

It might have been sexy, romantic fun for Andrew McCarthy but what other nefarious activities might mannequins get up to while our backs are turned?  Are they planning the revolution?  Would they like to steal our souls, or maybe our cars?  Do they long to push shopping trolleys and stare at us behind plate glass windows?

On a slightly less threatening note, I spent several months a few years ago obsessed with mannequin nipples.  I'm not really convinced that mannequins need to have nipples but what I came to notice was that female mannequins seemed to have quite prominent, "it's a cold day and I could cut glass with these" ones.  As if the very clothes that adorned them had the power to make their segmented bodies all a-tingle.  Every time I went to the mall I'd make a mental (oh, so very, very mental) note of the varying degrees of pertness of nipples on male and female mannequins.  The conclusion I came to was that a) I needed to take up a hobby and b) girly nips were more in evidence than blokey ones.  So make of that what you will.

So perhaps it is no great surprise that an impromptu weekend shopping trip found me and my companion in hysterics over some department store mannequins.  The best thing about it is that taking the piss out of a mannequin is just like doing it with real people except you can do it right in front of their faces (handy) and you don't have to worry about hurting their feelings.  On the other hand, if they do ever rise up and overthrow the human regime...I'm toast.  They will most likely scalp me and use my glorious mane as a wig.

But that definitely almost certainly probably won't happen, so let's crack on, shall we?

This mannequin I like to call "Russell". He has a country boy look about him despite the maroon highlights in his hair (which, sadly, you can't really see). So maybe he's a little bit hick and a tiny bit bogan-chick?  His hobbies are getting drunk and riding quad bikes, sheep-grooming, leaning on fenceposts, and staring off into the mid-distance.  Hair idol - Rick Springfield.  Fashion influence - Mum's second favourite teatowel.

This is Barry.  Barry drives a BMW, which means that he's allowed to park everywhere including disability parks and your front lawn.  Barry doesn't have a girlfriend because he is doesn't want to be "tied down" and is happy "playing the field".  On Saturday nights he likes to stay home and watch one of the DVDs from his Midsomer Murders box-set and usually solves the crime at least 45 seconds before that dumb cop does.  Hair idols - Too hard to pick just one but they include Garry Busey, Don Johnson and Simon Barnett during his What Now years.  Fashion influence - George Clooney (but just so you know, George is a total loser compared to Barry, and possibly gay).

Don sometimes wears Spiderman undies under his suits.  His hobbies include checking the profiles of his female friends on Facebook to see if they've recently broken up with their boyfriends or husbands.  He has no romantic designs on them, he just enjoys the misery of others.  His life's goals include getting a hole in one at Clearwater, climbing Mt Everest (without a Sherpa, because that's cheating) and drinking tequila without being violently ill.  Hair idol - The one, the only Bill Gates.  Fashion influences - For sunglasses, Tom Cruise in Risky Business. For suits, Christian Bale in American Psycho (sure he was a sociopath but he did dress really well).

This is Sebastian.  Scratch below his preppy exterior and you'll find the soul of an artist.  Sebastian IS art.  His face is his gift to the world.  Sometimes after an evening of trying to replicate Angelina Jolie's pout in the mirror his own beauty makes him weep.  Hair idol - Derek Zoolander and Adam Lambert. Fashion influences - He is currently undercover as preppy douchebag but would love nothing better than to move to Paris and wear nothing but black turtlenecks...so Audrey Hepburn, basically.

So, have you any theories about mannequins? (Either those pictured or shop "dummies" in general.)  Are they just a little bit evil?  Would the world be a better place if they ran it?  More to the point, why do they all have such terrible hair?

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