Naked Lady Mannequin Coat Rack (I call it Frankie)

If you are like me you probably have a few plastic female torsos laying around the house and quite possibly a coat or two looking for a place to reside. OK... I don't have more than one naked female mannequin torso's  - I only have one - because having one is 'normal' and having a bunch of them would be 'weird'. I picked this thing up from a sporting goods store in San Francisco that was going out of business and selling off all their stuff. I  have to say that I didn't buy it because that too would be weird - paying money for something like this - it was given to me - sorta. I was at the store after they had gone out of business and closed down with a bunch of other guys that were taking down all the store display racks. We were taking all these shelves and racks to the place that I worked because at the time we were setting up a retail store near Fisherman's Wharf - sorta.

  

Anyway my employer bought all the shelving from this store and we were all there taking the shelves and displays down as were other 'crews' of people getting other things that they had bought. Near the door were these two swimsuit mannequins and I asked the guy in charge if I could take one. He looked at me like I was weird and said get "it out of here!" So off I went with it back to my office... from there I had to take it home on the BART Train (public transportation) and I thought I would get some really strange looks and people laughing at me for carrying a naked female torso under my arm - but I was in San Francisco and that isn't weird - in fact few things are really weird in that city compared to what is an adjusted 'normal'

So after getting it home I had to figure out what to do with it. Putting clothes on it seemed to be the right thing to do but before I could do that I had to make it stand up by itself. Because it didn't have any legs I cut up some black PVC pipe and drilled some holes in the bottoms of the truncated leg stubs. The two pieces of pipe are a lot longer that they look in the picture because this thing is hollow. So I jammed the pipes up inside the body until the wouldn't go in any farther. I cut the pipe parts that were sticking out so they were the same length and glued on the U pipe joint. This essentially made the two pipes into one and gave me a place to glue in a short piece of pipe. Out in the backyard I had a couple of those old direct TV dishes that someone gave me and I laid it flat on the floor and attached the single PVC pipe to it. Check out the picture if this description isn't clear.

The top pipe sticking out of where the neck/head would be is actually part of the mannequin, it was designed to hang from that. These things were hanging by their skinny pipe necks from the ceiling in the store. I didn't mention that at first because it sounds weird. I figured if you have read to this point of the blog it wouldn't sound so weird. Am I right?

 

So to cover up the strange pipe sticking out the top I put my hat on it. I did consider building a transparent head bowl like thing with lights in it - and using that for a head - and I still may do that. I think it would look good if it had something that lit up when someone walked by or made noise... kinda like the lamp that I made. or maybe it could have a scrolling message but I'd have to think up something funny for it to say. For now it's just a coat rack and hat holder.

I bet that you want one !