In his Manhattan workroom, Ralph Pucci is putting the finishing touches on his latest mannequin collection for department stores, "Goddess." As the name suggests, Goddess is no waif. Pucci said he wanted hot and sexy, so she is 5cm to 6cm more curvaceous than his standard form and takes her cues not from runway models but from Beyonce and Jennifer Lopez.
"People with these types of body are flaunting it," he said. "They're comfortable with it."
Across the country, in the fashion district in downtown Los Angeles, Goddess already faces competition. Block after block of storefronts that sell clothes at wholesale prices not far from the Harbor Freeway display mannequins and pant forms with even more treacherous curves. Store owners point at the tight-as-a-glove fit of jeans and stretch pants around 97cm hips, ultra-voluptuous by classic mannequin standards. Sales, they say, are up as a result.
PHOTO: NY TIMES
"Anything we put on the mannequin, people buy it," said Fredy Shabani, who displays no fewer than three dozen of the curvier pant forms at his Via Metro clothing store. "The women love them. They see the pants look good." He added, "Men like it. Some guys come in and buy the mannequins."
The high and low ends of the fiberglass fashion world seem to be converging on one focal point: a bigger, sexy derriere.
Leading mannequin makers like Pucci say pop culture, the jeans craze and the steady expansion of American body shapes are prompting them to take slow steps in the direction of more realistic proportions, particularly around the hips. Even plus-size customers are asking for buttocks with "attitude," said David Naranjo, creative director for Greneker, a mannequin maker in Los Angeles.
He said his company had filled orders from retailers like Torrid and Lane Bryant that were trying to get away from the "boxy" full figure model.
"Everybody is looking for more," he said. "The pants just look better when they're filled out."
Mannequin manufacturers have traditionally stuck to low single-digit sizes for their beauty ideals, reflecting the supermodels tottering on the runways. Executives with Adel Rootstein, the London-based maker that conceived the Twiggy mannequin, said their product was in line with what appears on the runway in Paris: a tall Size 2 to 4. "Not too skinny, not too voluptuous," said Michael Steward, executive vice president of Adel Rootstein USA, like the Russian teenage model Anne Vyalitsyna.
"There's a difference between what people look like and what they want to look like," he said. "They want to see what they're trying to look like."
But others say the trend in the mannequin industry is toward more ethnic variety and recognition of different body types and standards of beauty. The trend, they say, responds to pop culture influences like hip-hop (backsides have figured prominently in rap lyrics and videos) and the growth of the Latino market.
"If you have your eyes open, you see this type of body becoming more relevant," said Pucci, who is launching the Size 8 Goddess in a variety of faces, poses and skin tones next month. "You can't flip through a magazine without seeing sexiness. You can't get away from it. Mannequins should reflect the times we live in."
Even at Size 4, the buttocks are now getting special attention. Goldsmith Inc, another New York manufacturer, last year introduced a mannequin designed for pants with a rounder and lower derriere than its usual Size 4 models. It is called the Sex line. It has been such a hit with small designer shops and big stores, like Saks, Macy's and Filene's, that the company is adding two more mannequins to the line this year, said Ronald Knoth, an associate with the company.
What Knoth called the "more girlie, hippy, curvaceous" Sex mannequin resembles a look commonly found among Latinas and women of color, he said, but it is hardly for a niche market.
"Probably more women look like Jennifer Lopez than Sarah Jessica Parker," he said.
A national body measurement survey released this year by the Textile/Clothing Technology Corp, an apparel research organization, and the US Commerce Department found that on average, men and women have gotten 2.26kg to 4.5kg heavier in the last decade. Women, whose average weight is now 70kg, gained the most in the hips, said Jim Lovejoy, the survey's director.
That means more pear shapes and an increasing demand for changes in apparel fit, so outfits can account for bottoms that, unlike those of the hourglass figure of the past, are more ample than tops, Lovejoy said. When broken down by ethnic group, the survey results showed that Latinas and non-Hispanic white women ranged in hip size between 107cm and 112cm on average, and non-Hispanic black women between 112cm and 116kg.
This hardly comes as breaking news to urban apparel manufacturers like Marc Ecko Enterprises, whose clothing lines cater to a diverse youth population. A few years ago the company had mannequins with fuller posteriors custom-made for use in presentations because the typical mannequin did not show the fit of its denim products well enough, said Matt Fontana, president for global brand development.
"We feel it's just farcical to not acknowledge the fact that people are a diverse group," he said, noting that the company's customer base is both urban and suburban of all races.
Fontana said that this year for the first time he has spotted similar mannequins in retail stores in cities like Miami and Philadelphia. Richard Rollison, vice president and creative director for the Lifestyle Forms and Display Co in New York, the mannequin maker used by Ecko, said that retailers have been slow to react but that he had no doubt they would follow suit.
He said women today were not only flaunting fuller posteriors but also fuller figures, and this was starting to show in the fashion industry.
"What this all represents is this kind of liberation that says it's OK to show other body types," he said.
The "other" body type is already the norm in places like the fashion district in downtown Los Angeles. Shabani boasted that he brought the first full-bottom pant forms and mannequins to the area from Brazil three years ago, for his mostly Hispanic clientele. But by now the larger store dummies are best-selling items at local display merchandise stores like LA Display Fixture, which imports cheaper versions from China.
These extra-voluptuous mannequins of course are nowhere to be found on Rodeo Drive, although even there mannequins have been getting fuller at stores like Guess and BCBG Max Azria. Still, high-end designers and stores remain partial to the leaner figure, some mannequin manufacturers noted, and they do, too.
Adel Rootstein's move toward more ethnic diversity is mostly reflected in a mannequin's skin tone and the shape of lips, eyes and other facial features, not in body type, Steward said. He said he did not see the emphasis on the behind lasting beyond a few seasons.
"It's a little sexist," he said. "It's not creating an image of a woman as an elegant creature. It's a little bit down and dirty, a little crass."
"The old mannequin with no hips and no butt carried couture very well, but much less so a pair of jeans," he said.
Still, the sight of a voluptuous mannequin can come as a shock. Knoth, of Goldsmith Inc, said that people seemed bewitched by the Sex line mannequins at a trade show in Las Vegas last March.
"Men, women and children wanted to touch them," he said.
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