The Great Shop Window Dummy Seeks and Finds Her Skin

AbstractRene Crevel’s article, published in 1934 in the surrealist magazine Minotaure, is a poetic and deliberately enigmatic reflection on the “great shop window dummy,” alluding to fashion, consumerism, and desire. Department stores during the sales are conceived as “arcades of skin” that offer themselves to the desire of the mysterious “great dummy”. She is being dressed up and manipulated, yet she is free, seductive, both violent and gentle, male and female, a perfect and intimidating beauty.