Fuller figures for figures
By JUSTIN GEORGE
Published December 6, 2005
TAMPA - The store is filled with everything discarded, items its owner found after going-out-of-business sales have been picked over. When every stitch of clothing disappears, Gail Floyd buys the naked shelves, racks and mannequins that remain.
House of Fixtures - which bills itself as a retail store's "Everything Store," - operates out of a squat house with a stone facade and pink trim on N Armenia Avenue. Four mannequin torsos in the storefront window seem jailed behind metal bars that keep robbers away.
It may be Tampa's only mannequin seller and has stayed in business for 20 years by catering to small clothing shops that need torsos to model shirts, hands for rings, necks for necklaces or foam heads for hats, not to mention entire bodies.
Last year, though, customers started looking for something other than the fragile, waiflike, fiberglass mannequins to drape their clothing merchandise on. They wanted something more ample for their displays.
Floyd didn't know what they meant until a mannequin maker sent her a flier.
"Get the right rear for your gear. Brazilian style mannequin or full man. $109. Jean form. $69. Affordable."
The new models with the more round posteriors have become the hot-seller at the simple, timeless store that also markets peanut brittle made by a 93-year-old man.
They are a bulging sign of the times; mannequins mirroring the bodies of pop stars like Beyonce Knowles, Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears. They also reflect the changing body shape of America, which is growing larger by all accounts, and more Hispanic, according to Census figures.
The mannequin makers who produce them call them "Brazilian form" because they model the curves on many Hispanic women.
"It's the big booty," said Floyd, 57, who also manages a pest control business, sliding her hand up a woman's jacket covering a plastic rump. "Quite protruding."
"Voluptuous," said 18-year-old James Ball, a part-time store employee.
The trend for a curvier mannequin began at least in 2004, according to Reuters News Service, but it's at its height now, said Barbara Putnam, director of national accounts for plus-size mannequin maker Life Styles Forms & Display Co.
"It's really big now with the whole Desperate Housewives thing," she said. "Jeans are so popular with a little tank top and a camisole."
Goldsmith Mannequins in New York makes a similar model to the Brazilian form, called its "Sex" model, which is made of fiberglass and costs between $575 and $750.
"She does have a larger, lower, rounder behind," Goldsmith associate Ronald Knoth said. "But if you saw her on the street, she would still shop for a (size) 2 or 4. She would just fill out her jeans better."
It's a look that Knoth doesn't see waning, unless women's low-slung jeans go out of fashion.
"That look is considered quite attractive," he said, "partially because of urban culture, partially because of pop culture. And many men find that attractive. I don't know if many women find that attractive but many men do."
Floyd, who has been stocking the Brazilian form mannequins for about a year, has sold 10 waist-down models and at least seven whole body models.
She inherited the store from her mother-in-law after she died three years ago. Many customers know to come in around noon because Floyd often cooks lunch in the back kitchen.
The store is full of hangers and pencils, slat walls and show cases, steamers and pricing gun fasteners. While most customers are business owners, the store attracts all types.
In the past, artists have bought mannequins and turned them into lamps. Customers have made them car passengers or dressed-up grand piano players. A director made one a cop in a play. An adult boutique has deviantly dressed up others.
The Brazilian forms are made of clear plastic, which make them more affordable than the used fiberglass mannequins Floyd collects. She gets those second hand from closed-down stores and even trash bins.
More fragile than the stout Brazilian models, fiberglass mannequins often break at joints. One child model in her store, for example, was missing a foot.
The Brazilian versions are the only type Floyd said she buys anymore. They have been so popular they have boosted business at the store.
"It's a nice shape," said one of Floyd's customers, Young Yu, owner of CNC Youth Fashion, a women's clothing stall inside the Tampa Indoor Flea Market. "I don't have the hips, but it's got the hips, and it's tall. Little stomach."
"They don't have much on top," Floyd said of the Brazilian models, "they have it all behind."
--Justin George can be reached at 813 226-3368 or jgeorge@sptimes.com