Mannequins and Dress Forms

I’ll try to break this down for you. I’m not sure that I can because I am not full decided on the issue, but ill attempt to bring you up to where I stand a professional designer.

People who are ether redesigning their stores or are designing them for the first time often wonder here to begin. There are many questions that a store owner has to address if he or she is going to make it in this ultra-competitive business. But these are not the issues I want to discuss now.

The question I want to talk about is one that I get asked so often it’s surprising, namely, “should I get mannequins or dress forms?” well ill attempt to answer that by first pointing out that there is no clear answer to that question.

As always with style and design, personal taste is a major factor and thus can never full fit into a scientific mold, at the same time there are general guide rules.

Assuming you can afford ether display mannequins or dress forms (mannequins are generally more expensive) the question comes down to this, what are you objectives? You need to know what kind of store you are trying to create in order to understand which way to go on the mannequin/dress form question.

If you are aiming for a modern or more cutting edge look then your best choice is display mannequins. The reason for this is that mannequins are smooth and sharply defined. This makes them noticeable but points the shopper to the clothing they are wearing and does not make a major impression (assuming the mannequins are not in a formation or position that is unordinary)

In the case of dress forms the aim in normally a vintage or retro kind of look. This makes a lot of sense because dress forms are more intricate and personalized and help create an environment in a store.

So the bottom line is this; if you’re going modern I recommend mannequins, if you’re going vintage go with the dress forms.