This is also a bit of a late reply, I hope to be of some help though.  We
constructed manniquins by altering old fiberglass retail- type manniquins.
We got local businesses to donate their old outdated looking and broken
manniquins, then we sawed off their heads, hands, and in some cases altered
their body dimentions radically. (the original manniquin ended up more as
an armature with connectors on the arms and legs)  Then we cast new heads
and hands in a plaster material, and attached them to the old bodies.  At
last we wrapped any part of the form that would be in contact with the
fabric of the historic costume in polyethalyne and then washed muslin.

The heads and hands were modeled in a vaguely racially specific type as
gleaned from photographs that were contemporary with the costumes.  Care
was taken not to represent specific individual details but it was thought
that the completely generic egg shaped head was too "space alien" looking
and a headless form looked decapitated and provided no logical support for
the attendant headgear. Shoes were imitated by painting the feet a dark
shadow color or by cutting the feet off altogether since this collection
did not include footware. Manniquin feet take huge sizes to get around the
bend in the ankle so if your costume includes boots or shoes the feet can
be cut off and fake legs and feet can be constructed from fabric and
stuffed or (in the case of boots) the leg ends can be inserted into the
ends and the foot just padded out. Most manniquins can support the weight
of themselves and their constumes without legs at all on the strength of
the rod that attaches to the floor or base plate.   This solution is low
tech, low cost for materials but very labor intensive.

There are many manufacturers of retail manniquins that might be prevailed
upon to do a special short run for a museum... You might even contact them
and ask for a donation of  connectors, bases, parts, ect..

If you need some contacts in the mannikin industry let me know I ll be glad
to send you some addresses of companies to contact.

Pat Strong
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Pat Strong
Pre-program conservation studies
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