23rd Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Artistic
Useless

Tribes We lived in the Mannequin Tribe. People there liked to see the clothes they wanted to buy on someone else before buying them. That's why the manufacturers made us look like themselves. Of course, with different materials. Then they sent the first-class ones behind fancy windows, with expensive clothes that few people could afford. They put some of us in front of big stores. A few behind the windows of small shops and a bunch of us who weren't good quality in the open markets wearing tanakura clothes. We made it easier for people to buy clothes and fall in love with buying clothes. People loved us and sometimes mistook us for themselves and laughed a lot. Of course, until the Hanger Tribe found them and became the rulers of the Mannequin Tribe. They had never seen a mannequin before, so they made strange rules for us, for example, saying that mannequins should not be put in the window without clothes because it was ugly. Or mannequins shouldn't look like people. That's why they forced the manufacturers to make us faceless. After a while, they said the mannequins' heads look like they can think. They bent our heads a little. Then they said, "Why would a mannequin need a head?" And they cut our heads off. When we went further, they cut us in half, saying the upper and lower bodies should be separate. Now, when people came to see us to buy clothes, they wouldn't mistake us for themselves. We weren't beautiful to them anymore. Then the hanger tribe said, "Why spend so much money on mannequins when there are hangers?" Some of us couldn't stand it and made it easy. The rest of us rotted in the warehouse. A little later, they sent everyone for recycling, so that they could make hangers out of us.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 06.2023
Date Uploaded: 10.2025
Photo Location: Tabriz, Iran
Camera: Canon EOS 80D
Copyright: © Mahdi Vaghari