Article by Lizzie Erftmier
If only I were ____, I would wear that.
Fill in the blank with whatever your heart desires; shopping through clothing stores typically brings out inner wishes and wants when fantastic outfits are displayed on mannequins no where near the size of an average woman.
Store mannequins are tall and slender with long legs, toned arms, and tiny torsos. The molded plastic does not represent the common female shopper wishing to purchase the dress displayed on the tiny figure, but campaigns across the world have sparked a fire that could lead to some change.
International model and TV star Denise Bidot recently posed in a Plus Size photoshoot where the photographer captured her body in comparison to that of a regular store mannequin. Bidot’s photo stormed the Internet after cosmopolitan.com posted an article with the picture, affirming that beauty comes in all shapes, sizes and ethnicities. photo by victoriajanashvili
Jo Swinson, an Equalities Minister in the United Kingdom, recently committed to the promotion of body confidence amongst women. The subject of her campaign? Clothing store mannequins.
In December 2013, Debenhams Department store placed the American equivalent of size 14 mannequins in their store displays. Size 14 is the average clothing size for women, and it wasn’t long before their competition followed suit.
The recent student survey showed that 3 percent of students correctly guessed the average body size while the majority rested at sizes 6 and 8.
“I would think it would be a little smaller,” freshman Kelly Straub said when she learned the average clothing size. “I am used to being around athletic kids who are fit and not ‘big’. I guess I just haven’t experienced a world where most people are a little bigger.”
“Shoppers want to look like mannequins,” sophomore Carma Draney said, “but girls shouldn’t be taught to base their self worth off how they look.” The goal of the mannequins was to represent the average shopper, as women are three times as likely to make a clothing purchase after seeing an outfit on a mannequin their own size. But the underlying message was body confidence and self-acceptance.
“To me, mannequins suggest to women that they may not look good in certain clothing unless they are a smaller size,” junior Kalil Johnson said.
Johnson had never heard of the mannequin reform overseas, but she says it’s something she hopes makes its way to the States.
While accepted by many and met with open arms, the campaign has received a fair amount of backlash from Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies. She’s anxious the plus size mannequins are making people feel that obesity is okay.
“I am increasingly concerned that society may be normalizing being overweight,” Davies said in her annual report. Though Davies has always been concerned with underweight portrayal of mannequins, she worries that the plus-sized acceptance will lead people to believe that they are a healthy weight even if they are not.
“I can see why that’s a concern,” Draney said. “Girls learn that they are beautiful, but they also know that they could be better.” Draney worries that the current mannequin size leaves girls aspiring to look like a certain body image that is viewed as perfect. “No one can be like that,” she said.
Straub, Draney, and Johnson subsequently agreed that having a variety of mannequins in all shapes and sizes would be most effective.
“It would attract the people that actually look like that. And if they see it on a mannequin that looks like them, then they are more likely to buy it,” Draney said.
Johnson sees it as a step towards the future, enabling women to achieve the confidence they rightfully deserve. With the obesity worry aside, Straub summed up the goal Swinson was hoping for: “Changing the size of mannequins would help boost a lot of people’s confidence.”
Johnson’s campaign was never focused on accepting societal obesity, rather it confronted the misconstrued belief of “normal” and “perfect.” She simply desired representation for the entire female population, both big and small.
And who’s to say the average woman rocking size 14 clothes is overweight? She might be a fit, curvy girl who just wants some cute clothes for summer.
The Network '14 