WHEN Gagandeep Singh Bhatia reaches his office in East of Kailash,Delhi,every morning,it does not bother him that scores of eyes are staring at him. Blank faces,steady gazes and boxed up body parts is what he deals with every day. He makes mannequins or dress forms for a living. Visual merchandising is completely dependent on mannequins. In the 20s in the West,when girls first started modelling tailored clothes to display them,they were called mannequins. While the form,fancifulness and body language of dress forms has metamorphosed tremendously in these last 100 years,they are still the most basic tool to communicate a designers ideas,the way a garment could be styled or how an accessory is worn. Bhatia,who has been in this business for more than 20 years,supplies mannequins to almost every well known brand in the country. Every store has a different demand and requirement for their visual merchandising, says Bhatia. Be it the rugged looking mannequins in funky T-shirts for Ed Hardy stores,the smooth metallic ones in The Collective stores,the coy-looking sari-clad ones in Meena Bazaar,or the cool,slouching ones in Forever 21,these dress forms imply different attitudes. Mannequins are carefully chosen to embody the brand that they represent. They take into consideration the image,personality,attitude as well as the collection of merchandise, says a Westside spokesperson. The store uses white faceless mannequins in casual attitudes for their outlets across India. . Bhatia,who also makes custom-made mannequins in his factory in Faridabad,says,Now-a-days most stores and retail chains prefer faceless,glossy ones. He adds,The newest thing in the market are poly-ethnic mannequins,the postures of which can be changed and repositioned according to the collection,season and clothes.
