Mannequino: A New disruptive product to revolutionise the way garments are merchandised. Mannequino becomes official Mannequin sponsor of Fashion Scout for London Fashion week 2014, 14-18th Feb & Fashion Scout Paris

Mannequino, an exciting new disruptive product innovation for the fashion industry, promises to consign traditional cumbersome mannequins to history.

The Mannequino and its founders have just been working on an installation with renowned stylist Harris Elliot, at Best of Britannia (an innovative and highly targeted brand statement event that exclusively caters for British Brands & Makers that design and manufacture in the UK).

Mannequino is a British design-led innovation and is the world’s first stylish pop-up mannequin bust that provides stunning new ways of displaying and selling clothes. Mannequinos are attractive, ultra lightweight, and easy to assemble.

The range includes both male and female versions. The concept is both smart and thoughtful, allowing fashion designers and brands a totally new level of versatility, especially those planning to sell internationally, in pop up shops and shows, and most strikingly Mannequino can be deployed in the post to harmonise window and in-store visual merchandising campaigns globally - simultaneously and spontaneously at the drop of a hat.

The founders of Mannequino have just teamed up with Muji Europe this summer for the promotion of Muji’s new ‘Mix and Match’ range across Europe, Mannequinos were sent out to 20 stores across the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Portugal, they were up in the window overnight.

Mannequinos have been wearing winter accessories in the windows of the Muji’s Oxford street store running up to Christmas, the flagship store has had a major refurbishment, transporting you straight through the doors and into Japan.

Created to pioneer an industry relatively bereft of critical thinking towards the sustainably manufactured merchandising; this product is ahead of its time, it was designed from conception as a closed-loop manufactured product, which means in the near future customers will be able post back material to be made into new mannequins, leaving nothing going to landfill.

The world’s first high quality pop-up mannequin is an unbelievably curvaceous form, considering it has been gracefully engineered entirely from flat sheets of flexible plastic.

Mannequino is expected to save the Fashion industry millions in shipping and storage costs. Mannequino’s unique selling points: Mannequino weighs only half a kilo, being ultra portable makes it convenient to take or post anywhere in the world for a fraction of the cost of sending a normal mannequin.

Unbelievably, you can store 1500 Mannequinos in one cubic meter of space, so it’s easy to imagine the savings that can be generated for high street retailers paying for high street real estate.

It’s creative selling point is that Mannequinos can be hung and internally lit to maximise visual merchandising options; allowing visual merchandisers to design exciting new hanging multiples and installations in windows and overhead, in store and at shows. The intuitive design takes only minutes to assemble and seconds to disassemble.

Mannequinos are very durable, tear resistant and chip resistant, if a panel gets damaged it can be replaced very easily and quickly.

Mannequino comes with a useful range of accessories including a travel belt enabling the bust to be rolled up neatly to fit into hand luggage, which gives designers and brands a spontaneous advantage. It is 100% recyclable and a sustainable alternative to traditional mannequins and busts. It is also 100% non-toxic and doesn’t leach chemicals onto garments, making it suitable for garment storage and museums.

It holds its form with 2kg of garments or products on its own and even more when used on a stand or with its hanging system. A Mannequino is 36 times lighter than a full body mannequin, and a tenth of the weight of the average bust.

Quotes from the designers: ‘We wanted to enable fashion designers, brands and retailers the best way of profiling their brand anywhere in the world; releasing them from exorbitant costs and services. Utilising Mannequino’s flexibility, retailers can now harmonise their visual merchandising campaigns globally simultaneously, we have just done this with Muji Europe, posting Mannequinos out to 20 stores across Europe overnight, and the next day they’re in the windows displaying Muji’s ‘Mix and Match’ promotion, they will then appear in-store afterwards’ says Kelly. ‘We felt it was essential to design a product for Closed Loop manufacturing, by doing so we knew our product would be streets ahead in terms energy efficiency and impact. The fashion sector, comprising textile and apparel creation and production, is the second largest global economic activity in terms of trade. The global sector is valued at around $1.44 trillion. As well as the raw material and energy the sector engulfs; from a merchandising perspective, there’s a real estate cost issue with storage of mannequins and reoccurring consumable costs of shipping them. Mannequino has been designed to tackle this from the start, and as a closed loop product, zero waste is our target, this adds terrific value for the future retailer’ adds Arash.

Testimonials: ”I haven’t been this excited about a new product in a very long time! It is a rare moment coming across a truly original and innovative product that is Mannequino.” Laurian Davies, International Business Development, UK Fashion and Textile organisation, ukft.org

“Using Mannequino’s means it costs less for me to show more, and they enhance my brand perception to buyers which wins essential attention from them” Bernice pan, Fashion designer and founder of deploy workshop, deployworkshop.com

“Mannequino is a step in the right direction in making mannequins a sustainably produced product which should be championed by retailers.” Sam Eastwood, centre director at Queensgate Shopping Centre, queensgate-shopping.co.uk

“The Mannequino literally lights up my brand. They are lovely, beautiful, pieces of art that compliment my designs.” Bianca Elgar, Fashion designer, beunlimitedltd.com