Mannequin Madness keeps over 1 million pounds of mannequins from going into landfills every year. So Earth Day activities aren’t something we do just for the month of April, it is a year round venture for us. We make the world a little greener, “One Dummy at at Time.”
We make it easy for retail chains to recycle their unwanted mannequins when the close or remodel stores.They make one phone call to us and we deploy our network of used mannequin vendors to pick up mannequins from most major cities in the US and Canada.
These are some mannequins waiting to be picked up by us from a store in Union Square in SF.
A few of our many retail customers are Nordstrom, The Gap, Banana Republic, REI, Nike, Bloomingdale’s, Bebe, Forever 21, Macy’s and American Apparel. The average life of a mannequin in these chains is 7 years. Because just like fashion styles change, so do mannequins.
When we recycle mannequin for retailers, some of the mannequins are in excellent condition structurally, just no longer the latest trend. But sometimes the mannequins have some damage. And sometimes we just got a bunch of body parts with missing limbs.
Whatever we get, we extend the life of mannequins that were once destined for the landfill. No we don’t turn churn them up and turn them into another product. We sell or rent them to all kinds of customers.
The mannequins that are in good condition like the ones in the photo below are purchased by independent retailers, museums, collectors, photographers, fashion students, trade show vendors and more.
The damaged mannequins are purchased by pepole going to Burning Man, or people doing Halloween displays. Or they are repurposed into various art projects that you can see on this Pinterest board or on our Facebook Group: Crafty Fun with Mannequins.
