Headstock

A headstock is a stylized representation of a human person, often a Bébé, a child or an adult woman, intended for the recreation of the children. She has been usually made out of plastic for approximately a half-century and generally proposed vêtue.

Description

The great majority of the headstocks are Jouet S for Enfant S, usually of the girl S. Some are purely decorative or have a cultural significance, sometimes related to ceremonies or the ritual ones - formerly especially -, and more rarely represent a divinity.

There exists a large variety of headstocks: headstocks with stiff or articulated bodies (the model more running), headstocks flexible (with the fabric body sometimes stuffed synthetic foam), headstocks of mode (most required of the collectors), headstocks gramophones (walkers or speaking), bathers (new born) and headstocks mannequins (nowadays of size more reduced to wardrobe developed, such Bleuette, headstock high-speed motorboat of first half of the XXe century or Barbie or Bratz nowadays). They are very variable sizes.

Any headstock can give place to a beginning of collection which will be directed with research and according to the taste: wood, cookie, porcelain, papier-m4ach3e, celluloid, rhodoïd, wax, felt, fabric or plastic. The collectors of headstocks are plangonophiles, term “  savant  ” coming from Latin but not recognized officially.

It is different from the Figurine, which is generally made up of plastic and metal. In addition, the figurine is often marketed with an aim of promotion, derivative product of television serials which put in scene the characters represented. Modern figurines, such G.I. Joe, are often marketing for the boys, whereas the headstocks are it for the girls. However, the boys collectors of headstocks “  jouets  ” exist and are more numerous than it is generally thought.

With the Japan, there exists an industry which creates headstocks of young girls admired for their physical beauty. Their cost is high, since they are manufactured with the hand in minor amounts.

Hina Matsuri is an annual festival Japan ease which emphasizes the headstocks.

History

The Archeology place headstocks as being possibly the known first Toy S. Some were found in tombs Egyptian children , which date from. They are figurines out of terra cotta, wooden, bone, wax, ivory, jade. As of fifth century BC, one finds figurines mobile, the arms and the legs are mobile, the articulation of the members is a criterion of the adaptation to the play activity.

The articulations are done with the arms, but also with the knees. It is very widespread and its trade goes in all the Mediterranean basin thanks to the merchants of Céramique.

The Chinese were among the first to manufacture headstocks in Porcelaine.

In ancient Greece, it there with the craftsman of the village which uses ground or wood falls to manufacture headstocks and, for the mass production, it is those which usually manufactures votive headstocks and agrees to manufacture headstocks to play if one asks them in great quantity. They have of 20 with 25  cm height.

They represent a little girl, but also characters of the street: Dancer S, actors, Soldat S. They are made with moulds. The headstock is between the reduction of the human image, the statuette, which has a magic side and the toy. They are toys, but they have perhaps also a religious value. They are used for the domestic worship, funerary like ex-voto of a pilgrimage. It is also the instrument of the Sorcier.

To Rome, the cradle, the toys of the child are devoted to Bacchus and, in the tomb, to the infernal gods. They are also in Ivoire, in Os, hard wood. At the time of the marriage, the virgin dedicated her headstock with Venus. When it has a child, it was going to suspend on the temple an image of the infant.

For the the Middle Ages, there are hardly information. Certain headstocks of the 13th century remained to us (out of watch with Strasbourg). They are terra cotta figurines: ladies and riding S. They are moulded in only one block and have a beautiful expression.

At the 16th century the first headstocks manufactured by the craftsmen for the children of the Aristocratie appear. They are made out of wood and rag.

Towards the end of the century, the headstock-mannequin, of which the goal is to promote the French fashion abroad, is created. It is an object of retransmission of the mode and ornamentation, as well as a childish object. It is more the double of the little girl than a baby in-arms. The towns of Nuremberg and Hamburg are known for their headstocks out of wooden of Buis. They are important centers of manufacture of headstocks.

With Paris, the bimbelotiers, the first “manufacturers of headstocks”, make beautiful headstocks, equipped well and vain. In 1571, the duchess of Bavaria in order several. One manufactures also headstocks with 1 franc. In 1540, a document mentions headstocks manufactured with a mixture of ground, paper and plaster.

At the 17th century and the 18th century appear more refined headstocks, with the glass eyes, with the members in skin and the painted hair. The materials diversify: wax, Papier chewed and waxes moulded on papier-m4ach3e. That makes it possible to obtain cheaper headstocks.

At the 18th century, the wax headstocks are manufactured for the rich children, and are increasingly fragile and luxurious. The productions are of two emigrated Italian families with London: Pieroti and Motanari. They compete with the French manufacturers.

In 1700, in Nuremberg, the manufacturers of headstocks are subject to very strict rules of manufacture. These headstocks were manufactured out of paperboard hones kind of papier-m4ach3e. The modistes, the dressmakers and the hairdressers make headstocks mannequins of them. They diffuse the Parisian fashion.

It is at the 19th century that the industrial production replaces the work of the craftsmen.

The headstock has a stiff body out of sheathed wooden of skin, the members are out of fabric or skin faggot of sawdust. The head is out of papier-m4ach3e with glass eyes and the hair painted. It is increasingly realistic, its neck swivels.

They will then generally have the cookie head (Porcelaine subdues cooked 2 times).

In 1878, at the time of the World Fair of Paris, a new type of headstock makes its appearance on the market: “the baby” with cookie head, which represents from now on the child from 3 to 12 years.

The appearance of the “baby” corresponds to the formidable international rise of the French industry of the headstock and the toy. The principal manufacturers of this time are Jumeau, Bru, Gaultier, Steiner, Fleischmann, but also Thuillier, Schmitt, May and Halopeau.

In 1899, though very popular, the principal French manufacturers of headstocks meet in a single company, the French company of manufacture of babies and toys (SFBJ) to try to dam up foreign competition, in particular German.

The innovation of the production of the SFBJ consisted of a series of “babies of character” to the expressive features and the proportions of very young children, even of newborns.

With the “mad years”, new materials compete with cookie in the manufacture of headstocks: the Celluloid, the composition, papier-m4ach3e, the stuffed fabric, the Baize, inter alia.

At the same time, a new morphological type of headstock takes a lead in the market: the “baby in-arms” with soft body which represents the newborn, with a famous person without hair and of the eyes which one says “alive”, since they also look at on the side.

At the time when hygiene takes importance, one learns how to wash the “Baigneurs”, but one continues with the rag, the rubber and the boiled paperboard.

The principal French manufacturers of this generation, in addition to the SFBJ, are Raynal, Anel, Petitcollin, SIC (Industrial society of celluloid) and Capi.

The childish reviews also ensure the promotion of headstocks “precedes”, whose Bleuette of the Week of Suzette is certainly most famous with its rich person trousseau bought done everything or made by the young girls starting from the owners of the review.

Second half of the 20th century sees the development of the new plastics and the progressive abandonment of all other materials. On the other hand, the variety of the headstocks manufactured at that time is exceptional: the traditional headstocks côtoient the bathers as well as the all news headstock-mannequins, babies in-arms with soft body that the caricatural or humorous headstocks.

The headstock-mannequin launched between 1956 and 1959 by the Americans, Barbie, was born with co-education. It is not a headstock of maternage, but of identification. In France, the principal competitors of Barbie are Cathie and Tressy of Bella, like Mily and Dolly of Gégé.

In 1951, the female review Modes & Travaux proposed of exclusiveness in the headstocks for which every month of the owners making it possible appeared to constitute a wardrobe to them. Francoise, Michel and the others gain still today a big hit near the collectors.

The principal companies which still use celluloid are Raynal, Petitcollin, Nobel, Convert, Urika and Maréchal. But the new companies which are essential with the new plastics call Bella, Gégé, Clodrey and, much later, Corolle.

The celluloid was removed in 1979, amongst other things because it was flammable, electronics is used to make speak the headstocks, the microprocessors cause various behavior. The alternative between the adult headstock and child remains.

The competition of the Asian production and the raising of prices of the raw materials due to the oil crises generated economic difficulties which precipitated the fall of the French large companies of headstocks (Bleated, Gégé, Raynal and Clodrey).

Vis-a-vis the preponderance of Barbie, the company Corolla, created by Catherine Réfabert in 1978 and repurchased by Mattel, represents approximately 18  % of the market thanks to a top-of-the-range positioning. Until 2004, the majority of the Corolle headstocks were manufactured in France.

Famous headstocks

  • Headstock Barbie and Headstock Ken, of Mattel (Headstock mannequin)
  • Bout of cabbage
  • Cathie
  • Poupées Bleated
  • Poupées Gégé
  • Poupées Corolla
  • Poupées Petitcollin
  • Poupées Clodrey
  • Bratz (Poupée mannequin)
  • Charlotte with the strawberries
  • Furga
  • Famosa
  • Italo-Cremona
  • Sindy
  • Peynet
  • Poupées Convert
  • Bleuette
  • Headstocks Daughter-in-law (Leon Casimir)
  • Headstocks Twin
  • Daisy de Mary As
  • folk S.F.B.J
  • Headstocks
  • Reborn
  • Tressy
  • Pearl of Delavennat
  • Tinnie de Raynal
  • Headstocks of collection annette Himstedt
  • BJD
  • Dollfies
  • Pullip
  • Blythe Fraud

Other uses

Materials used for their manufacture

See too

Internal bonds

External bonds

  • Poupendol : universe of the old headstocks: museums, suzette…
  • Museum of the Headstock in Paris
  • Site on the bathers in celluloid

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