Ghost mannequin
- invisible mannequin
- hollow man
- 3D ghost
A garment holding its own shape with nobody inside it.
Opens an image model with the prompt in it. The price is on the page before you sign in.
What it is for
It gives a garment a body without a model. The shape, the drape and the fit all read, and nothing about a person's face, skin or size is in the frame to distract from the cloth.
It is also cheap to repeat. One form, one light, one camera mark, and a whole season goes through in a day. A model shoot cannot run at that rate, which is why marketplaces standardised on this shot.
How it works
Dress a segmented form. A ghost mannequin form comes apart, and the neck piece lifts out, so the inside of the collar can be photographed in a second frame.
Shoot two frames from one camera mark. The first is the garment on the form. The second shows the inside of the collar, either on the turned garment or with the neck piece removed. The two combine afterwards, and the inside sits behind the front.
Light it flat and even: two large softboxes at 45 degrees on each side, camera square at chest height, pure white background. Flat light keeps the colour true, which is what a returns department cares about.
Keep the edge clean all the way round. Steam out every crease first, because a cut-out follows the edge exactly, and a stray thread or a clip prints as a spike in the outline.
When to use it
Use it for shirts, jackets, knitwear, dresses and anything with a collar, a cuff or a structured shoulder.
Leave it alone for soft flat items. Socks, scarves and swim briefs have no shape to hold, and a flat lay shows them better.
Told apart from its neighbours
A flat lay puts the garment on a table with no volume at all. A ghost mannequin keeps the volume and the drape, and it costs a second frame and a composite to get there.
An in use shot puts the garment on a person, so fit, movement and context all read. Ghost mannequin gives the shape without a person, which is what a size grid and a returns policy prefer.
Where it is used
Large clothing sites standardised on this shot as catalogue photography moved online through the 2000s, because it shows fit without a model release, a booking or a skin tone to match. Uniform and workwear catalogues use it for the same reason, and so do sportswear range pages where twenty colourways of one jacket must match exactly. The equipment is ordinary: a segmented form with a removable neck, two softboxes, a white sweep, and a compositing step that puts the inside of the collar back behind the front.
- online clothing listings
- uniform catalogues
- sportswear range pages
The prompt
Replace the blanks with your own subject, keep the rest. Then run it on an image model.
<garment> photographed as a ghost mannequin, the garment holding its full shape with no body and no mannequin visible, the inside of the collar and the inside of the cuffs visible behind the front, even soft light from two large softboxes at 45 degrees on each side, camera square to the garment at chest height, pure white background, a faint shadow under the hem, a clean sharp edge all round the garment
What goes wrong
The collar is a hole with white behind it. Say the inside of the collar and the inside of the cuffs are visible behind the front, and say the garment holds its full shape.
A mannequin or a neck appears. Name the mannequin, the neck, the head and the hands in the ban list, and say no body of any kind is visible.
Leave out
a visible mannequin, a neck, a head, hands, a flat garment with no volume, a collar with no inside, pins, clips, hanger marks
Watch for
The tell of a bad one is a collar with no inside. The back of the neck has to be photographed separately and put back in behind the front.
Questions
Shoot it
Pay for the one run. No subscription, and the price is on the model page before you sign in.
