The Dollywood Times

It is true that almost every blog to do with fashion, weight loss and eating disorders is having a dig at Rootstein for creating a new design of male mannequin.

I thought it best to put our hat in the ring, being an upcoming designer and producer of mannequins.

Rootstein is known as the pioneer in the mannequin world. They produce fantastic mannequins that hold their value and almost everyone knows about them. They didn’t achieve this status by not producing different kinds and styles of mannequins.

The latest release is Homme Nouveau – a tall, 37 inch (waist) male mannequin with what I would call a ’slight’ build. This can only fill a gap in the market and would not have been created if the demand was not there.

A lot of bloggers have said that this encourages eating disorders in men. But what these reporters fail to realise is that there are men out there with builds like this and they are not malnourished or ‘manorexic’.

We say well done Rootstein for enabling us to gain yet another category in our mannequin world.

(Picture found on web)

A mannequin is a valuable investment for retail merchandisers, event organisers and exhibitors. Keeping your mannequins in ‘as new’ condition is not as difficult as it sounds. Armed with these tips, we hope to give lease to a long life for any mannequin.

1. Always unpack your new mannequin with care and consideration. Ideally, wear gloves when handling the body parts. If you do not have gloves to hand then at least ensure your hands are clean and rings are removed. Rings scratching against the surface of a mannequin will cause what looks like light pencil marks. They can be removed but in any case, avoid yourself the extra job of cleaning by removing your rings.
2. Clean hands are essential when unpacking, assembling and dressing a mannequin. We see the most common of marks caused by hands on key areas, such as around the neck, bottom of torso, thighs and arms. All of this can be avoided.
3. Join the mannequin together with care. Forcing a limb in place with undue care and attention can break the fittings. These can be fixed but again, safe yourself the hassle and expense.
4. Do not stick cellotape or double sided velcro to the mannequin. It will either remove the paint or leave a sticky residue which is time consuming to remove. It can of course be removed in about a half hour with white spirit, but it is an unnecessary task. If clothes do not fit the mannequin as you desire, use pins on the fabric, not tape on the mannequin.
5. Do not, if you can help it, drop the limbs. Whilst many old fashioned or expensive mannequins may survive, most modern, lightweight mannequins will not. If you think your mannequin needs to survive the hands of novice merchandisers, then please ensure they are adequately informed before they are let loose on your investment.

We once liased with a leading department store on the care of their mannequins. Their policy in fact was very bright. We were talking about damaged mannequins and how they recycled them. Simply put, they told us that there objectives were to always care for the mannequins and handle them in the correct way. As such, this attention to detail ensured that their investment lasted well into the future. With stores throughout the United Kingdom, this was obviously a good policy to have and saved a lot of time and money.

This is a question that I get asked a lot. Can mannequins move their arms or legs? There is a simple answer.

If the mannequin is made from fibre glass, then it is in a static pose and cannot move much apart from its arms can move from by its side to a little higher – by having a hinge like joint where the top of the arm meets the torso. This mannequin video shows a great example, where the production team have used static (fibre glass) mannequins to imitate the dummies playing a keyboard.

But if you want a truly flexible mannequin that can do almost everything (apart from the washing up of course) then you need to look at our range of realistic and faceless flexible mannequins. They provide a very versatile solution to a variety of productions and are on the top of the list for a number of big idea directors.

Starring as yet the no name robot mannequin – more news to follow

OK, so a young Brad Pitt – but do you think he looks like him? Actually we don’t think he is as good looking as Brad, but he could pass as a substitute. Why not hire him and sit him down to dinner with yourself? Set your camera on the self timing mode and post it on Facebook – tell the world how you had dinner with Brad. Well, OK, we are getting a bit silly now but it is Friday and it is almost time to go home. Let us know what you think! Nice weekend. x

If you are in Nottingham anytime up to 17 April 2010 – then a visit to the Star City at Nottingham Contemporary will be an absolute delight. It includes a giant fallen spaceman, an electrical water feature and a 4 screen video installation featuring an astronaughts training environment for life in space. It is amazing. Our Silver Pucci’s are in residence during this exhibition and naturally look very comfortable in the surroundings.

The popular and ironic phrase ‘Vintage’ is a modern elegant-seeming euphemism for “old”. We use the term quite liberally when describing old mannequins that we have in our collection.

A recent addition to that category includes these two beautiful lounging female mannequins which are now available for hire only. We like to think that they will be used by event planners of a variety of descriptions including weddings and birthday parties.

These mannequins are now available to hire from £40 each plus shipping and VAT. We hope you agree that they are a truly artistic addition to our mannequin collection.

We apologise for the photo quality on these.

My Favourite Outfit was an exhibition at the Grosvenor Museum Chester. It showcased from 26 September to 22 November 2009.

The exhibition showcased the favourite outfits of members of the public and explored the stories behind their clothes. ‘My Favourite Outfit’ incorporated clothes from the 1940’s to the present day and included country and western fashion, 70’s maxi dresses and wedding outfits, among others.

“The faceless white mannequins we chose were perfect as they were bland enough to suit a range of styles and ages of clothes, yet human-looking enough to give atmosphere to the room and created the feel of models on a catwalk”.

Being asked to provide mannequins for music video shoots is one of our specialities and we are really proud to add the fabulous MIKA to our growing list of celebrity clients. Roz had a wonderful hard working day at Wilton’s Music Hall in E1 – the most beautiful music hall you have ever seen. Well worth a visit. www.wiltons.org.uk. The mannequins behaved themselves too, which was a bonus although one did refuse to have his trousers put on. We do believe that some of the crew have photographic evidence of Roz struggling on the cat walk with him. Let us know so we can have a caption competition!

All of us here at Mannakin wish MIKA every success in the world with the new album. Roz’s favourite track? I see you!

The shoot was featured twice on Channel 4’s T4 on Saturday 29 August 2009. It is available for 30 days on 4 on Demand. Click here to view on the web.