During the preparation for Chic Chicago, the Chicago History Museum decided to purchase a new stock of mannequins. Since they arrived at the museum last spring, they’ve elicited a lot of curiosity in the visitors and staff. There’s a lot of odd things about these mannequins, and each oddity offers an advantage from our perspective. To wit:

They’re called Schläppis! This is a funny word (German) and is pronounced Shleppy. Most of you are probably familiar with the colloquial verb “to schlep”, and that has no relation to the mannequin name, even though our colleagues might have thought so whenever they watched Tim and I dragging them around the Museum. (Mannequin moving is an awkward and occasionally amusing thing to observe. Too many arms and legs that don’t belong to you.) The name is just that — a name the manufacturers chose to differentiate one type of mannequin from another.

They’re bald! This is true; the Schläppis have no hair. Nor do they have distinct facial features or eye color, and they’re stark white rather than any specific skin tone. This is for a couple of reasons. First, it allows the focus to fall on the garment, rather than on the form wearing it; there are no other distractions that automatically draw the eye to the face. Secondly, we don’t want to make assumptions about the woman who originally wore the dress. If all we have is a black and white photograph, how would we get her hair or eye color right? With that particular dress, would she have worn her hair up, or down? You get the idea — we don’t want to paint an innacurate portrait of the original wearer, so we use the blankest possible canvas to simply show the garment itself.

They’re enormous. This is also a true statement. Many of the various Schläppi poses end up being taller than I am, and considering I’m six feet tall, that’s really saying something. And yet, they don’t look odd wearing the clothing of a woman who was five foot seven! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? The secret is that the extra height comes from the neck, hands, and ankles/feet of the forms, leaving the torso of the mannequin the length of a regular-sized person. Clever, no? The result is a rather artistic figure that, again, keeps it from looking too much like we’re trying to replicate the real woman.

Maybe the best thing about the Schläppis is that we can use them over and over again. And, with their interchangable arms, hands, legs, everything, we can create innumerable poses to bring a bit of playfulness and individuality to each garment they wear.

Tags: Behind the Scenes, Chic Chicago, Exhibitions, Mannequins, Meghan Smith, Schläppis

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