It features many of the Bonaveri and Schläppi mannequins that participate in and contribute to the magic of store windows around the world.
In the extract Gianluca Bauzano explores the significance of window design and the contribution that mannequins make to the art form. He meticulously outlines a narrative that draws on the romantic and illusionary world that mannequins inhabit.
Indeed the window/shop window has a powerful significance that goes well beyond its function, insofar as it represents an opening onto the outside, onto the world, a point of view from which to observe our surroundings. But it is also a passageway into a new dimension, as Alice in Wonderland discovered by falling through mirrors – which are actually windows, of course. In the case of shops, especially shops associated in some way with fashion, the window represents the place/non-place where fashion designers project their vision of style onto the world.
– Gianluca Bauzano
Delving deeper into the world these sophisticated beings inhabit, he shows how Bonaveri have crafted and delivered unique pieces to such a diverse industry whose creative focus leaves nothing to chance.
Bonaveri mannequins have been the precious, irreplaceable means to transform an idea, a project, an intuition into reality. Decade after decade, these “human silhouettes” born in their atelier have managed to “personify” the intentions of fashion designers and the most disparate requests from the international world of visual merchandising. And thus the window has become a stage and the mannequins actors interpreting their evocative scripts in silence.
– Gianluca Bauzano
This chapter is dedicated to the theatre and vision of mannequins in store window design and includes contributions by Frank Banchet – Art Director of Printemps, Paris, Paola Eletti, Visual Director of la Rinascente and Emanuella Cassol, Visual Director of La Perla and many more.
‘Mannequins: Bonaveri: A History of Creativity Fashion and Art’ is available in most book stores and online.
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