Female mannequins aren't just skinny, they're emaciated

A new study has found that female mannequins, but not male ones, represent extremely underweight women

There have have been several observations in the press and on social media in the past few years that some of the mannequins used to sell women's fashion represent unrealistic and unhealthy body sizes. But until we started to look into it, the issue had not been researched properly, and the evidence was mostly anecdotal.

Back in 1992, researchers surveyed a handful of mannequins from the 1930s-1960s housed in museums. They concluded that real women of a similar body size would be so thin that they would be unable to menstruate. More than 80 years on, and with women in a very different societal position than previously, you might expect things to have changed.