Early vintage mannequins..

[Joe 90]

In this post I would like to talk about Pierre Iman whose mannequins were created from a golden age and exuded the glamour of that time.
Pierre Iman was a french artist and sculptor who started working with wax creating unique portrait busts and mannequins of such high art that he became legendary. Today not only is his work sought after but also original photographs of his work. Iman's work flourished between the 1890s–1940's and his creations had resin eyes and human hair, they even had eyelashes, which is comparable to the Silicone and TPE dolls of today. Here are some examples of his work.

[Joe 90]

Here is an Excerpt of a bio on this artist which is quite detailed:
"In the early 1900s, a mannequin cost about $15 and it was around that time that Parisian artist Pierre Imans’ unconventional mannequins started to appear in windows around Paris. Imans would not only create the first mannequin of color (that was modeled after the great Josephine Baker) he also created a pair of lesbian mannequins (pictured above) that were part of an exhibition at the Moulin Rouge called the “Streets of Paris” back in 1920. While Imans’ creation were probably not so shocking for the far-ahead-of-their-time, progressive Parisians (Paris was the place everyone was getting their kinkly BSDM wear from during that time after all), they were still rather unconventional when it came to their appearance.

Imans’ mannequins drew somewhat from an Art Nouveau perspective and their forms had elegant modern lines and chiseled features. Many of Imans’ mannequins also possessed a sort of asexual look with the male mannequins having rather feminine features while his female models sported short masculine haircuts and menswear-inspired clothing. Even Imans himself didn’t care for the use of “labels” and preferred to operate under title of “sculptor” often using the phrase “Les Cires de Pierre Imans” or “The waxes of Pierre Imans” to describe his business. So revered was the Frenchman that upon the third exhumation of Saint Marie-Bernarde “Bernadette” Soubirous (or St. Bernadette whose initial claim to Catholic fame was seeing an apparition of the Virgin Mary eighteen times) Imans was called upon to create a wax imprint of St. Bernadette’s face and hands so that the body would not show signs of decay where it remains to this day on display in a crystal coffin in Nevers, France.

To enhance his already spookily realistic mannequins the talented French master sculptor would use real hair for his models including eyelashes and eyebrows, glass eyes and teeth made of porcelain. Vintage creations by Imans’ sell for thousands of dollars and even promotional photographs of Imans’ mannequins sell for a tidy sum of cash on various auction sites such as eBay."

Here are some more incredible images of his display mannequins including Pierre Imans’ ‘lesbian’ mannequins that were featured in an exhibit called the ‘Streets of Paris’ in 1920.

[Joe 90]

I have acquired an awful lot of images from his collections over the years and I will share those images here for you on this thread.

[seagull]

Wow! Just wow

[gogodolls]

Wow, these mannequins are real works of art!

Thank you Joe for sharing these beautiful pictures!
Cheers!

[Limetime]

Thank you, these are very unique!

[Joe 90]

" In 1896 the Dutch-born Imans began producing unconventional, natural looking mannequins in wax. He had studied with the sculptor Ludovic Durand, one of the chief modelers at the Musée Grévin, the hugely popular waxwork museum in Paris which had opened to the public in the 1880s. But with his own figures, Imans was keen to distance himself from the sort of waxwork grotesques one would encounter at the Musée Grévin; he considered himself not a wax modeler but a sculptor, a statuaire céroplasticien or "ceroplastician".

Imans created some of the most beautiful and striking sculpts of men ever created. Just like his women some were realistic and others were exaggerated caricatures of people.

[Dollfriend]

These pics remind me of the mannequins in the video game Fallout 4, neat...

[Joe 90]

Thanking you for taking an interest in this post. I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

[Joe 90]

" Imans considered himself a sculptor, describing his figures as Les Cires de Pierre Imans, that is as wax sculptures rather than mannequins. Promotional catalogues from the 1910s show figures with names, ‘Beatrix’ for example, against a painted diorama background; there are also images of the skilled workers painting the delicate skin tones and make-up of the mannequins, and implanting the glass or resin eyes, and real hair onto heads and eyebrows.

Wax mannequins continued to captivate the imaginations of painters, photographers, and filmmakers in Paris, particularly the Surrealists. Famously sixteen mannequins lined the entrance corridor at the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme in Paris in 1938, and inside mannequins also featured in the work of Andre Masson and Salvador Dali. "

As you can see his workshop created some quite impressive Dames. They look like femme fatales that have just stepped out of a 1930s film noir.

[Brunch]

Any black models? (afro/negro)

[Joe 90]

There is only one I know of, Imans’ mannequin based on French dancer and jazz great Josephine Baker. Imans’ modeled the mannequin’s face after an Erté illustration titled ‘Queen of Sheba.’
Where it was based on an artists illustration it is not a life-like sculpt of Josephine.
Dare I say that this other mannequin seems to have the features of someone a little exotic.

[Joe 90]

Imans was the first artist to produce a coloured mannequin and his art drew on the art of Art Nouveau and later Art Deco.
Here is another rogue gallery of male characters.

[Joe 90]

"The evolution of the mannequin probably dates back to the 15th century when they were used by milliners to show their customers how head-dresses and hats looked. At first they were made of wood but during the 18th century full-size wickerwork versions came into use. The 19th century saw the advent of the papier–mâché mannequins. The real changes came during the second half of the 19th century after the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park. This enormous showcase of the latest innovations in technology and design, the pinnacle of the Industrial Revolution, took the world by storm and opened up never before possibilities in consumerism.
Out of this buzz of activity came the new department stores. The first department store was Harding, Howell & Co’s Grand Fashionable Magazine, a large, Georgian shop opened in Pall Mall in 1796 for the newly affluent middle-class women who could shop and socialize at leisure without the need for a chaperone, but it wasn’t until the latter half of the 19th century that they really started to take off, mainly by drapers and textile merchants who were able to utilize products such as plate glass windows and lighting. Americans such as Rowland Hussey Macy who founded Macey’s in 1858, followed by Benjamin Altman and Lord & Tayor, were quick to spot this new era of taste and buying power of the new generation of middle-class woman. Le Bon Marché in Paris, opened in 1838 and was revamped in 1852 and Galleries Lafayette didn’t open until 1912, three years after Harry Gordon Selfridge opened Selfridges. Harrod’s, the first department store to install a moving staircase was built in 1898 on the site of an earlier one.
Needless to say, these stores needed to display their clothes and accessories in a better way than that used by drapers and dressmakers. And so the “fashion” mannequin was born. The word mannequin comes from the Flemish word “manneken” meaning little man or figurine and that is exactly what the artists intended them to be."
Here are more of imans' damsels from that period.

[Joe 90]

Life-like mannequins were not only the domain of the fashionable West ; the Japanese also used them. I will not be covering that here that is for someone else to explore.