Dress Forms

What is a dress form?

A dress form, or 'body form', is a human body-like model covered with foam and fabric. They are used by stores for dislaying clothes in a store, for product photography, and by tailors for creating clothes.

What is the difference between a dress form and a mannequin?

The dress form has a hard inner shell covered with foam and fabric to allow for pinning, while a mannequin has only harder outer shell (usually plastic or fiberglass). In addition, dressforms are usually just torsos while mannequins can be any body part. Both are commonly used in retail. Click here to see our mannequin selection.

What is the difference between the standard dress forms and the professionals?

The standard dress form was created for its appearance while the professional dress form was created for its function. Both can be used for retail (though the standards are more common) and both can be used for sewing (though the professionals are more equipped).

What does 'fully pinnable' and 'partially pinnable' mean?

The foam and the fabric of our dressforms allow them all to be pinnable. Partially pinnable body forms have a thinner layer of foam and the pins can be inserted at an angle, while fully pinnables have a thicker payer thus allowing the pin to be inserted directly. Many of our tabletops and professional are fully pinnable (all written up on their product pages).

Can they be used to display pants as well?

While our dressforms are meant to display tops (such as shirts, jackets, coats and dresses), they can still be used to display trousers as well. Dual connectors on the underside of our forms allow them to be attached to the pole either through the center of through the left side (through a pant leg). All of our floor standing models and many of our tabletop models have these dual connectors.

Need to know more?

We have written up a full guide to our dressforms (here) that address many of these points in addition to many others. We have also published fully detailed assembly guides for these dressforms (accessible through their product pages).

If you have any questions please call or email us - we are here to help!