Mannequin Observatory

aurora boulevard is one of the most dangerous alleyways in the metro, i swear. the speeding jeepneys shoot like bullets through the road so fast, it comes to a point where you have to maintain this awkward position (two hands on the jeepney bars, and sitting on the edge of your seat..) while your hair and the wind are frenzying on their own... the problem is that the drivers are driving recklessly but they have absolutely no idea about it, since they have been doing the driving for a very long time already, and the very loud stereo music is blasting their eardrums so they couldn't care more about other things...

i was at the mall yesterday for a change merchandise (my black string bag, i wanted the blue one...) and i was walking through the corridors (lost because i cant find my way through the crowd that was still in pre-school-panic-buying-mode) looking at the many designs of mannequins that don the freshly stone-washed clothes of clothing merchandisers... they came in all shapes and shades, and i asked myself, is there a criteria that a company sets before it purchases a mannequin? like for example, the mannequins in jag have prominent butts, maybe to emphasize their hip-hoppy designs that are most of the time low-rise.. the mannequins in sporting houses are the most buffed, with the widest shoulders, and most of the time, the darkest shade (they are usually black mannequins.. i dunno why.) the mannequins in adidas are not really that buffed though; they are chiseled to be slender, with long athletic musculature, and flat pecs, maybe trying to immitate the real athlete's body.

the mannequins of this formal dressing store on the other hand, do not have heads! instead of a neck, the collar bone extends upward to form a long triangular stick ( i was thinking there was supposed to be a head hanging from that protrusion). i was thinking about possible heads that could complete the attires and the mannequins themselves, and my thinking led me to the bizarrely exhuberant mannequins of SM. they are usually girls with an obvious look of cheer in their faces. they have wide smiles which reveal all their front teeth, and their hair color is most of the time hot pink or bubble gum blue.. SM being serious in wanting to sensationalize the concept of "eye-candy."

while i was walking through the mall corridors, i was thinking: even if they were mannequins, some of them actually have personalities. the mannequins of penshoppe look like they are school people prepping up for a first-day funk. the mannequins of mango look so sophisticated, they would have been in the ranks of wendy puyat if ever they were real.

but the most posh-looking mannequins of them all, took my breath away. i was about to try my luck of finding the bag-store i was looking for when i stumbled upon a white-laden facade of glasses, illuminated by fourteen stumps that had spotlights embedded in them. i looked further, and let my eyes hover over the fourteen olive-skinned mannequins which stood sinister in front of the white background, all in the best looking articles of clothing i have ever seen. i looked up and there, emblazoned over the off-white wallpaper finish were the initials:

F&H...

and then i was suddenly thinking about how good the clothes in folded and hung are, and how expensive they are, but how nice the quality, and that all of it was made by a filipino, the founder was actually a filipino etc. etc...

so, in the end, i came to the conclusion that mannequins sometimes speaks more about the company than the salespeople do..

marithe + francois girbaud, on the other side of things, doesn't have mannequins manning their front windows.

hehe. blawbber...

-marketing!-