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FASHION’S PUPPETS
Lay Figures of Today
By Elizabeth George
The evolution of the contemporary mannequin from wax dolls which once used to pass from Paris to London to display the cut of a dandy’s vest is one of the lesser triumphs of our day, but even more interesting, from a romantic point of view, is the modern lay figure. At the recent London Exhibition of Men’s and Women’s Fashions, the lay figures were quite as remarkable as the designs of the clothes themselves. Wooden and immobile, they yet contrived to look more expressive than the most alluring mannequin. Art, with its uncanny power of embodying abstract ideas, has given them the authentic air of modern youth—sophisticated, intelligent, and unexpectedly wistful.
Of another age again are those old fashioned blondes with dimi
