We are so accustomed to seeing them as beautiful fashionably dressed in the windows of large stores, that we do not even think about when and how they appeared there, these dolls are in the height of a man who "... look like people ..."? But the history of mannequins has ancient roots and captures no worse than a good detective.
Even the ancient Roman provincial women of fashion learned about the fashion novelties there not from fashion magazines (in those days they simply did not exist), but on the clothes of clay dolls, which were brought along with the merchandise merchants. They also often offered fabrics from which the doll's clothes were sewn, so that ladies who want to keep up with fashion could not only repeat the style, but also sew a new thing from the same material.At the beginning of the 14th century dolls appeared in Paris. They were wooden and very expensive. Anna Czech, the first wife of King of England Richard II, received in 1391 a doll from Paris with the new works of Parisian couturiers attached to her. The event was so significant that it was reflected in the historical chronicles of the royal court. The rendition of the court tailor Robert de Varence, who lined the King of France Carl Six, about the receipt of an advance in the amount of four hundred and fifty francs for sewing fashionable dolls - a gift for the Queen of England, to that. Thus, dolls the size of a man, with a wardrobe - the object of envy of any wealthy lady, served as court fashioners as guides to the country of mod. In the 40s of the 17th century in France wooden dolls were replaced by wooden waxes, "Dowry" chest with a whole heap of fashionable clothes. Perhaps, it is because of this that the trunk in the dolls saw an analogy with the image of the mythological Pandora, which violated the law "Do not bother with the nose, where it does not follow!" (She opened her trunk with misfortunes for people out of curiosity) and called them pandora.
In the 17th century, novelties of fashion began to appear on the pages of printed publications, the first such "advertising agent" was the magazine "Gallant Mercury", but its small circulation could not constitute a serious competition for pandora mannequins. The dolls went with a box full of dresses, shoes, fashion accessories and even perfumes. In Russia, the fashion for pandora dolls also affected the representatives of the royal court: in the imperial palace in Gatchina is still kept a doll - pandora, made by the personal modem of the French Queen Marie Antoinette Ros Bertendl Empress Maria Feodorovna.
Having conquered Europe, pandora dolls reached America, where by this time there were women of the same name, interested in high European fashion. There is even a beautiful legend that when such dolls were transported through the territory of military operations, military commanders stopped the battles and passed pandora dolls, organizing a "green corridor".
Beautiful clothes were supposed to advertise no less beautiful dolls, similar to well-groomed secular ladies, so in the 19th century there were specialized firms that produce pretty porphyry heads and bodies made of wood. Demand gave birth to a proposal.
The sunset of the monopoly of the pandora dolls is considered to be the year 1860, when they were rapidly replaced by fashion magazines. But the heirs of the pandora dolls are not lost in the modern world. They have permanently and for a long time settled the windows of our stores. In his world, cozy itihom, the heirs of pandora still advertise fashionable clothes, only now, together with beautiful female mannequins appeared male and children.
The production of dummies is a whole industry with its artists, chemists, engineers and sculptors. Here, the latest technologies and light composites are used, making manipulations with simple and operational dummies. Pandora's heirs are not in a hurry to give up their positions.