Mannequins
By: Louk Vreeswijk
Tags: Beauty, Erotism, Technology
With the advance of modern technology the two meanings of the word ‘mannequin’ – in French as in English – have grown towards one another. The lifeless dummies on the photo, showing clothes in a shop-window, can hardly be distinguished anymore from the living dolls doing the same at a fashion show. Perfect bodies, fluid postures, vacant looks.
This was quite different in the past, and in many countries it still is today, with cheap, simple and often ugly dummies lined up in a row, stiff and stark. That is probably the reason why in Dutch language, in which the word ‘mannequin’ is used primarily in the sense of living model, the other meaning of dead dummy is less in use. For the inanimate model we prefer the word ‘etalagepop’ (shop-window dummy). It hurts using the same word for a pretty animate woman (or man) and a cheap dead object in the shape of a woman (or man).
Meanwhile technology advances ever further. What to think of this robot-girl. She can move, she can talk, she can smile … as a mannequin on the catwalk she would cut a good figure without doubt.
Robot girl 2018, photo copyright ANP
In the midst of all this high tech female beauty the fleshy hand-and-arm in the picture on top is clearly out of tune. Will living souls slowly be coming to an end?
Photo of the week: Mannequins, Livadia, Greece 2013
καιρός remembered 
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