One of the most compelling sections of Doll Dressing at The Museum at FIT is titled “We Can All Be Dolls.” It poses a fundamental question for contemporary culture: who actually gets to be a doll today?

Why We Love Dolls, and Why They Sometimes Make Us Uneasy.

We Can All Be Dolls: Control, Puppetry, and the Fashion Body

Millions of people love dolls. Some collect them, sew for them, restore them, photograph them, or simply keep one special doll from childhood. We know that a doll is not alive, yet it can still feel deeply personal. A doll may remind us of a simpler time, offer comfort, or become a small escape from the real world.

Dolls That Move

Not all figures that look like dolls are actually dolls. Mechanical dolls, or automata, come to life when we wind a key. Marionettes move when someone pulls their strings. They may look quiet and harmless when standing still, but movement changes everything.

A doll that moves can feel magical, but also a little unsettling. We know that there is a mechanism inside, or a hand controlling the strings, yet for a moment it seems as if the figure has its own will. That small uncertainty is part of their fascination. The French word poupée, the German Puppe, and the English word puppet are all related to the Latin word pupa, meaning “girl” or “doll.” Dolls, automata, and puppets have always been close relatives.

When Fashion Moves Like a Doll

Puppets rarely move on their own. Their hands are held, their bodies are guided, and someone else decides when they will turn, stop, or come to life.

The exhibition reminds us that a puppet, especially one shaped like a woman, raises sharp questions about control: Who decides how the body should move, look, dress, and behave? In fashion, a similar tension is always present. Clothing can be playful and liberating, but it can also carry heavy expectations about beauty, femininity, and the “correct” way to appear.

Jean Paul Gaultier explored this idea in his Fall 2004 couture collection, Les Marionnettes. His models wore clothing inspired by string puppets and moved with deliberately restricted gestures. Their costumes gave the impression of oversized puppet bodies: padded forms altered proportions, while visible printed details suggested the joints and construction of a marionette. The result was theatrical, strange, and slightly disturbing, in exactly the way a beautiful puppet can be.

Jeremy Scott approached the theme differently in Moschino’s Spring 2021 No Strings Attached collection. In the video shown at the exhibition, models appear as dolls in a fantasy salon, but this time without visible hands or strings. They move through the space dressed in pastel suits and eveningwear, looking like fashionable dolls who have escaped from a toy box.

Both designers use the puppet as more than a decorative reference. It becomes a way to think about the fashion body: stylized, dressed, watched, and sometimes controlled. Yet there is also humor in these collections. The fashion doll is not always helpless. Sometimes she is theatrical, glamorous, exaggerated, and fully aware that everyone is watching.

Featured Objects & Labels

• Jean Paul Gaultier, Les Marionnettes, Fall 2004: Couture collection inspired by string puppets; presentation emphasized restricted movement and enlarged puppet-like proportions.
• Moschino, No Strings Attached, Spring 2021: Short fashion-film presentation by Jeremy Scott, featuring doll-like models in pastel dresses and eveningwear.

Christian Francis Roth, 1989: White linen trousers with black suede appliqués, creating a visual reference to a puppet or doll body structure.

The mannequin as a fashion doll

The exhibition reminds us that fashion dolls are everywhere. One of the most familiar examples is the mannequin.

A mannequin is a doll-like figure made to wear clothing and encourage us to imagine ourselves in it. The outfit is not permanent; it can be removed, replaced, and styled again. In this sense, every shop window is a small stage for fashion dolls.

The word mannequin entered French in the late seventeenth century from the Dutch mannekin, meaning a small wooden figure with articulated limbs. By the nineteenth century, tailors and dressmakers were using mannequins much as they do today: to construct, fit, and display clothing. When women began modelling fashionable dress in France in the 1800s, they were called les mannequins vivants, living mannequins.

Like fashion itself, mannequins change with the times. Earlier display figures were often highly realistic, with painted faces, wigs, articulated limbs, and carefully formed features. Since the 1970s, abstract mannequins have become increasingly common. But whether realistic or simplified, they continue to do the same thing: they present the garment and invite us to imagine it on a body.

Dolls, puppets, automata, and mannequins may look very different. Yet all of them stand somewhere between object and person. Perhaps this is why we love them, and why they can sometimes make us feel slightly uneasy.

Sources & Further Reading

• Doll Dressing. Exhibition at The Museum at FIT, New York, September 16, 2026–January 3, 2027. Curated by Colleen Hill.
• The Museum at FIT. “Doll Dressing” exhibition text and object labels, photographed by the author during her visit, September 2026.
• Hill, Colleen, ed. Doll Dressing. New York: Rizzoli Electa, 2026.
• The Museum at FIT. Doll Dressing exhibition page.