Manikin (pronounced man-i-kin)
(1) A
man short in stature; (sometimes as a term of endearment but now archaic).
(2) In
folklore, a dwarf; pygmy.
(3) An
anatomically correct model of the human body (or a part of the body), used for
teaching or demonstrating surgical and other clinical techniques; a specialized
form is the phantom, an anatomical model of a fully developed fetus, for use in
teaching midwifery or obstetrics.
(4) A
three-dimensional figure, dummy or effigy representing a man or person (now
replaced by mannequin), manikin now correctly used only in the medical context.
1560s:
From the Dutch manneken (literally “little
man”), a diminutive of the Middle Dutch mannekijn,
from the Proto-Germanic manwaz, from the
primitive Indo-European root man- (man). The original meaning was "a jointed model
of the human figure used by artists" and the sense and spelling is often
blended with mannequin. The early synonyms
(in the context of small humans) included homunculus, midget, peewee, shorty,
titman, & doll and (in the sense of the artificial creations) dummy,
figure, mannequin & marionette. The
noun plural is manikins; the (rare) alternative spelling is mannikin.
Mannequin (pronounced man-i-kin)
(1) A
styled and three-dimensional representation of the human form used in window
displays, as of clothing; dummy.
(2) A
figure or model of the human figure used by tailors, dress designers etc, for
fitting or making clothes; historically made from timber but now constructed
from many combinations of materials.
(3) A
person employed to wear clothing to be photographed or to be displayed before
customers, buyers etc; a clothes model (dated).
(4) In
the visual arts, another name for a lay figure
1902:
From the fifteenth century French mannequin (model to display clothes) from the
Dutch manneken (model of the human
figure used by artists). Mannequin was
the French form of the same word that yielded manikin and in English, was
sometimes used in the sense "artificial man" (especially in
translations, the trend apparently triggered by the frequency of use in early
twentieth century translations of the works of Victor Hugo (1802–1885)). Originally, it was applied to humans in the
modern sense of “a model” and not until 1931 did it assume the meaning of
“artificial human model figure to display clothing”. A sideway variation was the later
“clotheshorse” (a person whose chief interest and pleasure is dressing fashionably). The noun plural is mannequins.
The difference between a Manikin and a Mannequin
Mannequin was a word once used where model would now be preferred, a person employed to wear clothes and carry accessories but since the 1930s a mannequin is a usually plastic or fibreglass emulation of the human form (in shape but not fine detail), typically found scattered throughout clothing and department stores, most famously as part of displays in shop-front windows. Most mannequins represent a body shape within a fairly narrow range of dimensions but the industry recognizes eighteen different types including the obvious like “sexy” and “sporty” but there are also the niches such as pregnant people. However, despite the industry's vocal embrace of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), impressionistically, it would seem the female mannequins on display still tend to the slender.
Manikins are also human shaped models but rather than being a fashion platform, they are
used to help simulate medical, surgical, or clinical scenarios to assist in
training and the honing of technique. There
are a variety of manikins and in the jargon of the medical devices industry,
they range from low to high fidelity, the rating an indication of the degree of
anatomical realism included, a high-fidelity manikin sometimes even including
movement, speech, muscular reaction and facial expressions. A high-fidelity manikin might include a complete
set of internal organs and have many interchangeable parts whereas a low-fidelity
model might be just a hollow shell used to teach students how to insert an IV or
perfect the techniques of bandaging.
Manikins
exist so those working in a clinical environment, from students to surgeons, can
enjoy a safe environment in which to practice their skills, without the obvious
risk of using live patients. Although
doctors continue, as they have for centuries, to murder their patients, rarely
suffering any consequences due to the cozy legal apparatus known as “medical
misadventure”, the use of manikins presumably lessens the slaughter of the innocent.
Like mannequins, manikins are designed
for purpose and there are birthing simulators, newborn simulators, simulators
that go into cardiac arrest, and even dental simulators.
Although anatomical models were used in medical training as early as
the sixteenth century, the first manikin (in the modern understanding) was released
in 1960 as a device for teaching cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The design parameters were written by two
physicians, Austrian Peter Safar (1924-2003) and American James Elam (1918–1995),
the engineering and fabrication handled by Norwegan Åsmund Lærdal (1914-1981),
head of a company with expertise in plastic molding from their experience as a
manufacturer of children’s toys.
Famously, the face on the manikin is that of L'Inconnue (L'Inconnue de la Seine (The unknown
woman of the Seine)).
L'Inconnue, was
probably about sixteen when she died in the late 1880s and although it’s not
certain, most then concluded she took her own life. As was done at the time, after her lifeless
form was pulled from the River Seine at the Quai du Louvre, the corpse was put
on public display at the Paris mortuary, a popular attraction and one justified
by the purpose of hoping some of the dead might be identified. Despite the daily crowd, none came forward to
name L'Inconnue. The dead waif however
was far from unnoticed, many remarking on her unusually serene appearance and
one much taken by her was the pathologist who performed the autopsy. He had a plaster-cast taken of her face (a
not uncommon practice) and within years, reproductions of L'Inconnue's
alluring, deathly likeness were being sold throughout Europe, the mesmerizing
mask, later describe by philosopher Albert Camus (1913-1960) as a "drowned Mona Lisa", fixed to the
walls of drawing rooms, fashionable salons and the studios of (presumably
already troubled) artists. The silent
beauty also attracted writers and early in the twentieth century there was a
rash of imaginative fiction speculating about the short life of L'Inconnue,
many melodramatic, most constructing a short, tragic life battered by ill
fortune and finally taken by the waters of the Seine. For writers, it was the lure of the tragic, death,
water and a waif irresistibly romantic and in death she became the one of the
great influencers of her age, described as “the aesthetic template for a whole
generation of German girls who modeled their looks on her", adored in
death as many authors liked to imagine she never was when alive.
L'Inconnue’s death mask would over the years attract artists and it’s been rendered in many materials including ceramics, copper, bronze, granite and even chocolate, seen as an icon and on canvas with a variety paints.
Decades later, L'Inconnue’s image would again be revived. Åsmund Lærdal in the 1940s had been a manufacturer of small wooden toys but in the post-war years, attracted by the possibilities of the then novel plastic, he experimented with the soft, malleable substance and, finding it ideal for his purposes, embarked on mass-production, one of his products the acclaimed toy “Anne”, a baby with “sleeping eyes and natural hair". Anne enjoyed international success and when told the two anesthesiologists, impressed by the life-like behavior of the doll’s plastic material, had asked if he could fabricate and mass-produce a life-sized adult manikin on which could be demonstrated their newly developed resuscitation technique, they found an attentive listener; some years earlier, Lærdal's two year old son had nearly drowned and had his father not forced the water from his airways, he too may well have died. For a toymaker with expertise in the molding of plastic to form hollow toys, it was a formidable engineering challenge not only to create a realistic, functional maikin that reliably could be used to demonstrate the physical complexities of CPR but to design a mass-produced product which would be financially viable.
The technical specifications provided by the doctors had included a collapsible chest for practicing compressions and open lips to simulate mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but Lærdal, after discussions with his engineers, concluded it was also important the manikin should be recognizably female, suspecting men might be reluctant to practice CPR on a male doll's lips. It was during the design process Lærdal recalled the enigmatic half-smile on a mask he'd seen on a wall while visiting relatives and it was this memory which inspired him to choose L'Inconnue. Resusci Anne (Rescue Anne or CPR Anne in the US) was released in 1960 and was the first device of its type, so successful the Lærdal Toy Company soon transformed to become Lærdal Medical and it’s estimated over 300 million people around the world have been trained in CPR, most of them using Resusci Anne. If L'Inconnue really did, as so many authors would have, take her own life in the depths of a despair only unrequited love can induce, fate would have her in death inspire Resusci Anne, called “the most kissed girl in the world”.
Perhaps surprisingly, Andy Warhol never took L'Inconnue as his subject. This one is a fake.
Despite the sad charm of that, it couldn’t happen now, the ethics of making reproductions of a dead person's face and selling them without consent, un-discussed in the late nineteenth century, troubling today. Were such a product now to be created and a life-like face was necessary, the visage would have to be either licensed or anonymized. However, psychologists have conducted trials using a genuine Resusci Anne and one with no discernible facial characteristics and reported the more anthropomorphic appeared to enhance the realism of resuscitation training. The researchers noted the face made CPR training more intense and stressful for both clinicians and lay-people but their follow-up questionnaires some months later revealed those who “kissed L'Inconnue” displayed a much higher recall of the techniques learned on the day. She may have died forgotten, but in her immortal after-life, L'Inconnue is clearly memorable.
The
romance of L'Inconnue is compelling but there have long been doubts about the
original masks, sceptics suggesting it’s unlikely the flawless features could
have come from a corpse fished from a river, the suspicion being a pretty young
model might have been the source for the cast taken to take commercial
advantage of the great public interest in the story of the young girl. There are other theories too and the truth
will never be known but L'Inconnue’s mystery is the essence of the strange tale.
Some assembly required: The Apprentice Doctor’s Full-Body Adult, Nursing and Trauma Manikin.
Supplied as a kit complete with burns, lacerations, and broken bones, it’s said to offer a realistic experience in the identification, assessment, treatment, and transport of trauma patients and disaster victims and can be used in forensic medicine and CSI training, working well as a manikin for crime scene simulation projects. Prices start at US$1,199.00.
To
ensure durability and ease of maintenance, the manikin contains no latex and
the manufacturer cautions the kit (1) is intended exclusively for classroom
instructional (educational) use and training purposes, (2) requires adult
supervision and guidance for students under the age of 17 years and is not
suitable for those under the age of 15 and (3) contains items that may pose a
choking hazard to toddlers and babies (keep out of reach of these age groups).
Intended as a low-maintenance product, the post training cleaning routine consists of (1) after nasal feeding, gastric lavage, enema, male and female urethral catheterization procedures, empty all the residual liquid, used from the stomach, intestines and bladder, (2) Rinse all used tubes & catheters with water and dry for re-use and (3) if in disuse for an extended period of time, the manikin should be wiped clean, covered and placed in a cool, dry place; this will extend service life.
Art deco (though with some debt to mannerism) lady Mannequin bust in plaster for hat or jewelry display. Just as there are flesh & blood models who specialize is one body part (hand models, foot models etc), there are also mannequins produced for the purpose of featuring just one or several body parts.
Fashion mannequins have been in use since the fifteenth century and were originally the head-forms with which milliners ensured a hat maintained the correct shape during construction. Once a purely “back-of-house” or “workshop” device, as the price of glass was reduced by the adoption of techniques perfected by the late sixteenth century, glass-windows in shop-fronts became larger and more common so milliners essentially invented the “window display” in its modern form. Although it had been the practice of many artisans and merchants to display their goods in this manner, it was the milliners who were first in fashion. By the mid eighteenth century, full-scale, wickerwork mannequins were being used to display dresses, the more conveniently adjustable versions made with wire first manufactured in Paris in 1835. However, the expansion of the trade created a demand for cheaper, lighter, non-adjustable forms which were purely a platform for display and the first (papier-mâché) female mannequins were sold in France in the mid-nineteenth century, the higher-end stores soon adopting mannequins made from wax which produced a more lifelike appearance but, expensive and apt to be fragile, the wax was in the 1920s supplanted by a more durable composite material, based on plaster.
Modern mannequins are almost always made from plastic or
fiberglass although the, as marketing devices, the haute couture houses have
used (sometimes stylized) one-off mannequins made from metal and even what was
claimed to be carbon-fibre though experts quickly pronounced it fake (as
opposed to faux). Fiberglass mannequins
are usually more expensive than plastic and tend to be more fragile but can be
rendered in a more life-like form which can be done with plastics but not at a
reasonable cost. In fact, the trend in
recent years has been for plastic mannequins to eschew any attempt to appear
realistic, presumably to ensure the focus fixes on the clothes. Artists have also used articulated mannequins
(historically known as lay figures), as a tool to assist the rendition of draped
figures, the advantage being that unlike a live model (on an hourly rate), a
mannequin can be kept indefinitely immobile or adjusted as required. Additionally, they don’t complain about the
cold, demand lunch or take cigarette breaks.
Vintage Playtex Cross Your Heart wire-free bra in beige, displayed on fibreglass mannequin. For specific purposes, mannequins are sometimes produced with certain aspects scaled beyond the usual size range.
While there are variations which tend to be product-deterministic (and the upper ranges of the alphabet in the bra business is an obvious niche), the size and shape of most mannequins exists in a predictably narrow range and one acknowledged to be smaller in most dimensions (except height) than either the majority of the adult female population or that aligned to the majority of the garments actually sold. In this of course it follows the profile of the industry’s live models who are famously taller, lighter and thinner than all but a handful of their customers although, under pressure from activists, this pattern is now (slightly) less extreme than once it was, despite many wishing those days would return. Before we called models models we called them mannequins and, flesh, plastic or fibreglass, little has changed as an extract from The Bystander’s (a British weekly magazine which in 1940 merged with Tatler to be published as The Tatler & Bystander until 1968) edition of 15 August 1906 suggests:
”A mannequin is a good-looking, admirably formed young lady, whose mission is to dress herself in her employer's latest "creations" and to impart to them the grace which only perfect forms can give. Her grammar may be bad, and her temper worse, but she must have the chic the Parisienne possesses, no matter whether she hails from the aristocratic Faubourg St. Germain or from the Faubourg Montmartre.”
