Mannequin Chests and Rumps Worldwide: Miami Update

One of a zillion busting-out Miami mannequins.

Hello. Ahem. Pause ogling that photo over there for just a moment and look over here at these words, please.

The image you see to the left is a real Miami mannequin, which boasts (as you may have noticed) somewhat un-real proportions.

What you observe over there is merely one of about forty-thousand Bust-a-licious Mannequins in Miami. These top-heavy plastic ladies are in EVERY South Beach window these days!

You see, at a certain point, mannequin designers in South Beach must have looked around at the street and said: “Oh my… these skinny little twig mannequins do NOT look like the curvaceous babes strolling down Ocean Drive! It’s time to add a little more plastic up top. Er, actually, a LOT more.”

Or perhaps one too many Miami women with, er, physical enhancements, walked into South Beach stores and screeched “I do not feel represented by those window dolls! Look at that bikini on that skeletal mannequin. How could I possibly know how that would look on ME, given that I have THESE, and that plastic punk does not? I demand to be represented! And my silicone-filled chest does, too!”

I don’t even know what to write for this caption. Seriously. “Chest?”

At this point the store owner must have quaked in his designer boots and gone straight to his iPhone 4 to dial up a company called something like “Ye Olde Large-Chested Mannequin Company.”

I mean, really… who are the people who design these dolls? What are their meetings like? Do they start cracking up every three seconds, or do they keep straight faces throughout, and get really stressed out like normal office workers?

If they are married men, do their wives get jealous of the mannequins? Perhaps whisper feverishly at night: “Do you like those artificial plastic wenches better than me? Do you wish I looked like that?”

But this is an educational travel blog, so let’s pull it together and snip that flight of imagination right now to move on to cross-cultural comparison… of mannequin chests and butts.

“Flatty” mannequin butts in Vietnam: the anti-Miami body.

For those of you who were reading this blog when I was in Vietnam, you may have read my article analyzing the rear ends of Vietnamese mannequins.

The conclusion of that article was: Brazil’s mannequin’s have “Fatties” (luscious round rears), and those in Vietnam are… “Flatties.”

(Click here for the full article on Vietnam mannequin butts.)

I’m back in Boston now, land of conservative, petite mannequins, but I can’t help but think back a little wistfully to the ridiculous plastic humans lining Miami’s storefronts. I mean, it’s already pretty offensive to have all clothes modeled on washboard-tummy-ied, white-(plastic)-skinned, Size 4 dolls… How are the completely over-the-top mannequins of South Beach, Miami that much worse? :)

Lillie Marshall

The author, Lillie Marshall, is National Board Certified Teacher, fitness fan, and mother of two who has been a full-time public school educator since 2003. She launched Around the World “L” Travel and Life Blog in 2009, and over 3.7 million readers have visited this site over the decade. Lillie also runs Teaching Traveling Global Education Community and Drawings Of… Educational Cartoon Site. Subscribe to her monthly newsletter, and follow on social media with the links below!