Dress Form / Mannequin

[Garvey]

Does anyone know a good source for a quality Dress Form or a used life-size mannequin?  I know absolutely nothing about them, is there anything I should know before I go looking?  I am looking for something I can use to form costume pieces on, so it would need to be close to my size.  And just for general display of said costumes.

Thank you for your help.

 

[Klara]

Unless you have the shape of a model, a mannequin as is won't be much good. You can either buy an adjustable dressmaker's dummy, something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Adjustoform-FG150-Male-Dress-Form/dp/B00EZQ55VO (can't help with availability because Google gives me mostly French options).

Or you could make it yourself with the help of a friend. Here is how https://paulaobrien.com/making-a-duct-tape-dressmakers-dummy-the-right-way/ though I'm not convinced about the duct tape. When I first read about it 15 years ago they recommended paper tape, the sort artists use to frame pictures or bookbinders to glue pages together. I couldn't find any at the time, used duct tape and it would come apart fairly soon. You might want to look for other instructions- YouTube also has some for adapting a standard dress form to your measurements.

There are stores that sell equipment for other stores - everything from shelving to shopping bags to cash registers - they have the standard display mannequins, which you could maybe adapt to your size. A cheaper way to get them might be to find a store that goes out of business. Or you could try Ebay, or classifieds. 

Good luck!

[Garvey]

Thanks for the information Klara.  I never considered making my own.