Venezuela: Big Busted Mannequins

Every single mannequin in Venezuela boasts absolutely improbable shapes – gravity-defying, as-if surgically enhanced boobs, razor-thin waists, dramatically massive hips, and super duper plump butts. This is not just a coincidence, but a result of the pageant-obsessed culture (between 1990-2010 Venezuela won 11 global top titles as Miss Universe/International/World/Earth). At the same time, cosmetic surgery became affordable to masses and over-popularized. Around the early 2000s, a local mannequin sculptor Eliezer Alvarez realized that traditional slender European molds simply weren’t moving inventory. Instead, he went with a total feature overload and pushed custom fiberglass creations that quickly became the ultimate marketing tool across the country’s boutiques and shopping centers. Shop owners rapidly adopted the designs after realizing that dressing these voluptuous figures in revealing tropical fashion drove sales exponentially higher! What started as a clever commercial tweak turned into a Venezuelan cultural phenomenon and an industry standard – bigger, crazier, more voluptuous, and surreal.