The Living Mannequin

Between the years 1920 and 1940, designers used living mannequins to sell their clothes, somewhat like the models in runway fashion shows we see today, but in the stores and on the floor, changing their clothes and altering their appearance to best sell the fashions. The practice of living mannequins came between when designers stopped using wax forms (not very stable in a hot studio) and before mass production could create reliable (and cheap) plastic forms, the ones we see in retails shops today.
Jean Rhys worked for a brief time as a living mannequin and wrote about it in a short story aptly named "Mannequin." In Quartet, Marya considers finding a job as one as well. I am interested in this idea of mannequins for a few reasons. First, it brings up the question of authenticity. The plastic mannequin "wore" makeup - to appear more "real" and the "real" woman was reduced to a type, an idealized slim and white woman who had endless purchasing power. It is arguable as to which succeeds at being more real - at the very least, plastic mannequins have been more successful at their craft (when was the last time a salesperson at the Gap offered to bring out a model to show off that new long sleeve tee?) Second, both the living and plastic mannequin came about as the result of mechanized production - the ability to produce a large number of items that are exactly the same (like photographs, of course). As clothes began to be made by machines and ready-to-wear products the norm, shop owners needed more ways to show off the many options they could now offer. Did women feel that they too needed to perform as if they were mass produced, to act as reproductions in function and form?

Can we ever be individuals again considering how we are inundated with examples of what it means to be woman before we can perceive ourselves distinctly in the mirror?