My wife and I were passing thru Hect's recently at our local new mall. I am amazed at how much of the square-footage of that place is devoted to women and girls apparel. Of course, that has always been the trend for department stores. Their target customer is female. More recently I have noticed that there is more marketing attention devoted to the teenage and preteen female customer. The “junior miss” section – if that is even the correct name these days – has gained prominent placement in the overvalued real-estate of the department store. At first glance one assumes this section is for adults based on the skimpiness and maturity of the outfits on display; yet the sizes are a bit small on careful inspection.
As we passed a herd of mannequins on a dais, I was shocked to see nipples! No, I don't mean there was a pair of serendipitous puckers in the shirt material; there were nipples! They had their own shadows! The mannequins were clearly cold or very happy to be there.
Why on earth do mannequins need to be so anatomically correct, especially when the faces look like the hulls of new rowboats? The psychology of modern day marketing is a restless beast. Its hunger is never quite sated. There is a constant push to make the product noticed. Mannequin styles have ebbed and flowed endlessly from being frighteningly realistic to resembling nothing more than a couple of broom sticks nailed together. Now we have strategically placed “details” to catch our attention.
Clearly the marketeers are assuming that the teenage girl has the buying power. Consciously or subconsciously she will see this perky mannequin and want to have that shirt so that she will be as attention getting. I know if I were the dad of a teenage girl, that display would create the opposite effect. I hope it would for all dads. I wouldn't want my daughter's physiology to be so evident. What's next? Will the men's underwear mannequins now follow the Abrahamic tradition?
Sex sells. That hasn't changed. What has changed is what we are buying.
J Ian Wilson
21 - march - 2004