Memoirs of a Store-Front Mannequin:
Thoughts and Observations from a Live Window Model
Yes, I’m that girl-in-the-window who sat with hot-pink bow in my hair, rattling presents and waving at passers-by of Hawk & Sparrow on James Street North; the lady in white sitting miraculously still while searching my heart and mind and all of you for something to write in my pretty brown notebook; the statuesque woman in an antique brown gown perched ever-so-silently on a vintage cream-and-yellow settee.
I sit and watch all of you, wondering at your bustle, peering just as queerly at those children and teenagers making strange faces, jumping up-and-down and beating on the window just to get me to blink. The window is old, and so I ask that you not beat upon it just to get a reaction from me – as that glass might break before I do.
You make me blink, I assure you; I just manage to hold it within until a better time. Now seems such a time.
“How does she sit so still?” I hear children ask mothers and mothers ask Sarah Moyal, the owner of Hawk & Sparrow. There was a time in history, I’ve read, when ladies used to sit with poise and grace for hours, needing not to speak nor to be spoken to, when we were content with simply observing. Such times fascinate me, have always fascinated me; sitting still, I’ve learned, provides more opportunity for discovery than motion, talk, bustle.
I wonder, when I hear mothers comment to their children that they wish the little ones could only sit so still as I: are these children ever taught the value of sitting still? With constant motion, constant activity, constant stimulus through TV, movies, computers, video games, baseball, basketball, hockey – when do these children ever have a chance to sit? I remember, as a child, I sat and read; I sat in trees and watched the bugs; I sat on my mother’s antique settees to escape the bustle and noise of my seven siblings, and was grateful for the silence. I sat in the car or in our van on long road trips and watched the Florida palms, the passing cars, the billboards. I learned to sit and sit and sit, to take in details and beauty and all the world.
I would ask you mothers of bustling children: when do you sit? When do you stop moving, stop going, stop running from place to place to place? When do your children ever see you enjoying your time by yourself, that they might learn to do the same?
I watch these children-turned-teenagers who cannot believe that a person can sit so long, never moving a visible muscle, never giving evidence that she lives or breathes, never showing a thought on her face or in her eyes; I see these restless beings bouncing, beating violently upon glass, begging and demanding for attention, for a response; and I wonder if they have ever been asked to find a response of their own, within themselves. I wonder if they have ever given attention to themselves; I wonder how violently they beat upon the glass of walls around themselves, that they may be free.
It is likely no wonder to those who can sit and marvel at such things as the patterns of growing condensation on drinking glasses, that one might sit and sit as I do in the window of Hawk & Sparrow each ArtCrawl. For those with deep interests, deep lives, deep hearts, the sitting comes naturally, and life in all of its variegations pours in relentlessly.
For those who yet wonder: I sit to model clothes that I find beautiful, for a store that I find beautiful, so I might share and help share with a world that can be beautiful a place that I find beautiful. I am nothing but a model; and so I can sit for hours and be nothing but a model.
Why then should I move? Why should I react, and how can I, if my purpose is to model?
What’s your purpose, little ones? What’s your purpose, young ones who twist your faces and beat and shout? What’s your purpose, mothers and fathers with wishes for still children? What’s your purpose, all of you who walk in front of my view upon the world, all of you meandering from place to place to place, wondering and marveling momentarily at one who sits and sits and sits…?
Thanks to Sarah Moyal, owner of Hawk and Sparrow on James Street North in Hamilton, Ontario for the photo and experience, and to all of the visitors to Art Crawls who enjoyed watching me do what comes naturally.
Oceans of Mine 
i enjoyed reading this. definitely thought provoking. as i read it, i imagined what i would be like as a mannequin and came to the conclusion that this character must be infinitely more confident about its appearance than I am. I don’t think i could be a mannequin or a model for that matter exhibiting severe anxiety problems, just because i can’t stand the feeling of people staring and judging, especially if i know that it’s my beauty or lack of beauty that makes all the difference when it comes to whether or not the customer enters and/or makes purchases. that difference between me and the character kept me from feeling too connected, that fact that the mannequin was studying the passersby as opposed to feeling anxiety on top of anxiety. but i could connect with her/its observations of the people. my favorite line, “It is likely no wonder to those who can sit and marvel at such things as the patterns of growing condensation on drinking glasses, that one might sit and sit as I do in the window of Hawk & Sparrow each ArtCrawl.” I study engineering and i get the science behind it all but i could still sit there and stare at the phenomenon passing more than enough time to make any companions i have feel awkward.
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Wow, thank you for such a thorough expression of your reaction!
The mannequin was, in fact, me; and I wrote this piece after having performed as a live model in the front window of a friend’s boutique for several sequential months.
I understand you entirely, not being able to connect to the model – and this feeling is intentional. As a shopper, I’m never able to connect with the mannequins in window displays – and most are made entirely of real plastic. But they may draw me into the store with the creativity of the display or the beauty of the clothing….
And there is a natural distance that I always take when people stare at me – precisely because I am desperately self-conscious, whether in the window of the store, or while walking down the street. That was the interesting thing about being a model: because I can sit still for so long, without moving hardly a muscle or batting an eye, it was easy to remove myself from the people passing by who I considered were all judging me – but who were honestly more surprised at my presence and amazed at my skill of being statuesque than judgmental of my appearance or physique (of which many, if not most, also heartily approved).
It is no easier to be judged well than ill, I promise; and you are right to catch even that. But, at some point, being scared of being judged becomes a moot point and boring, tiresome to feel… And that is the point at which the judging turns on its head, when the observation turns around, and the questions arise in me of my observers as easily as in them of me.
And that is the point at which I wrote this piece….
But perhaps I’ll take your advice and write the prequel, so you – and all of my former observers – can see how it feels to be watched by literally hundreds of people in a single night.
Thank you so much,
M.
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