Enter mannequin # 2 (Jayne), a vintage dress form who wore my aprons through the summer and fall months. She took a major hit when a gust of wind knocked her over, requiring chiropractic adjustment to realign her various sections. Currently she is hard at work at the Brunswick Winter Market, displaying my aprons to all who stroll by my booth.
During this time my daughter's friend found another mannequin at a yard sale and bought it for her. Because she is in no position to store another dressform, she asked me if I had a use for her. The timing of this acquisition was perfect because in November I began selling at two different venues and I was able to leave the second model in place in between market days. This currently nameless dressform is vacationing at the end of my sewing table until the next time she will be called into action.
But that isn't all. A fellow vender asked if I'd be interested in a male mannequin, saying if I dressed him up he'd pass for a woman. What she didn't realize was this gentleman is a jogging fellow and TALL. He stood in my living room for a week or so while I tried to figure out what to do with him. The solution was a dismemberment and storage. He is handsome and quite suave but I couldn't figure out how to use him. He certainly isn't easily portable for markets and somehow a running apron-wearing cross dresser is not what I have in mind to showcase my aprons.
Not long ago my son asked me if I'd like the top half of a female mannequin. Well why not, and he brought her home. No arms, legs, stand or hair but she is lovely though virtually useless in her current form. I put a hat on her, stuck an earring in her ear and realized the potential she represented. My husband brought in the lower body of the male mannequin - sans those jogging arms - and I discovered the lovely lady's torso fits on the handsome man's lower half, kind of sort of. Presto - an apron-wearing body! Gail, who owns Second Hand Rose in Brunswick, Maine, let me bring home two wigs to try on her bald pate and voila - she gained her crowning glory. Yet to be named, she will become my photographic model dressed in apron and (hopefully) period dress and used to upgrade the photos on my website.
That makes five extra bodies hanging around here, each one with it's own function. I'm grateful they don't consume food or precious resources but just hang around being useful and looking lovely.
