Material Bodies

I am fascinated by this article from Salon on “Big Breasts for Dummies”:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/01/03/boob_mannequins/

At first I was struck by the concept of reshaping mannequins to take on the form of surgically-enhanced women, but there’s more. We’re already dulled to the criticism that advertising sets unreasonable standards for real bodies to attain, most evident in the medium of the magazine cover. The magazine, of course, can be photoshopped to perfection, a look, it turns out, women can now purchase in the form of cosmetic enhancements and surgical procedures. The latest trend in advertising features the look of “real women”–a look that, ironically, is far from real or natural (as it consumes as much of our time and money to attain it).

But consider the mannequin:

From the article: “Fifty slender mannequins and three hyper-buxom models stood around a
large, rectangular showroom in various states of undress. I walked over
to the somewhat slutty-looking ‘Jessica,’ who was naked except for a
wig of ash blond corkscrew curls and a cigarette hanging from her
mouth. She stood next to the red-haired, mega-breasted ‘Anna,’ and the
similarly huge, African-American ‘Anita.’ In a smaller photo room, the
chesty ‘Mary’ stood naked and wigless. Her high, round breasts came up
to my collarbone. They were bigger than her face, the nipples painted
Bazooka bubblegum pink.”

Yes it seems excessive to design mannequins with breast enlargements–but what strikes me most is that these mannequins are further attempts to represent the “real” woman. Hence the production of culturally diverse mannequins. I don’t know where I’m going with this, but in all the design and purpose of the store mannequin reflects our own obsession with the control and manipulation of the design of the human body. The map is the empire, the empire is the map…