Designed in Wax: Creating and Selling the Modern Woman, Business as Usual

In 1927 Vogue’s illustrators collaborated with Siégel & Stockman, well-known mannequin producers, to create and promote a series of wax figures. Under the artistic leadership of André Vigneau, a sculptor, photographer, and advertising designer, Siégel mannequins decked in Jeanne Lanvin or Jean Patou garments, Madame Agnès hats, and jewelry by Frédéric Boucheron or Georges Fouquet sold fashion to an entire generation of women. In doing so, they also sold an attitude and body image that historians would come to subsume under the all-encompassing term “flapper” from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels. With no fewer than sixty-seven factories and workshops throughout the world, Siégel & Stockman designed and effectively disseminated the new look, making it a staple of Hollywood’s movies as much as of any up-and-coming young girl. This paper examines the company’s mannequins and window designs since 1923 when Vigneau joined the corporation until his resignation in 1929. It argues that through a set of innovative business strategies and marketing techniques including collaborations with well-known couture houses and fashion magazines, daring designs, the creation of department store windows, sale percentages shared with Vigneau as artistic director, and participation in world’s fairs, Siégel & Stockman created a new ideal of feminine beauty. With an eye towards business success, however, these men did more than design the look and supposed feel of the “new” women; they also revolutionized the fields of retail design and advertising, effectively turning the new woman herself into a successful design and selling tool.