Mannequins to Return to Their Native France

A collection of 158 small-scale wire mannequins, which Paris fashion houses paraded before the world after World War II to prove the Nazi occupation hadn’t crushed haute couture , is being returned to France from a museum in Haryhill, Wash.

The 30-inch mannequins, thought by fashion historians to have been destroyed, have been on display since 1952, wearing miniature versions of clothing and accessories designed by 54 French fashion houses, including Lanvin, Nina Ricci, Balenciaga, Paquin, Molyneux, Pierre Balmain, Worth and Schiaparelli. How did the mini-manniquins reach Haryhill?

“Unfortunately, it’s not even clear to us,” museum director Linda Brady Mountain said. It is generally believed, she said, that they arrived at Haryhill via the owner of the City of Paris department store, which was in San Francisco and where the dolls were last displayed--and through benefactor Alma Spreckles, a wealthy San Francisco arts patron. The restored mannequins, with their stage sets, are to go on exhibit at the Louvre in January, 1990.