Mirror Mannequin

No woman rests content, once a dress catches her eye, until she has actually tried it on and examined it from every angle. Some women even insist on trying on outrageously wrong clothes just for the hang of it. As a result, lines queue up before dressing booths, coiffures become disarranged, clothes quickly become shopworn.

Now Audio-Visuel France has developed a system that promises much simpler shopping. It is called Le Miroir Magique. The shopper is first draped in black up to her neck, then perched in a chair on a platform facing a special non-silvered mirror designed for rear-projection. By pushing a button, she can then flash slides of a store's collection, each dress in her own size, onto the mirror beneath the reflection of her face, discovering in seconds whether or not the particular color, neckline and shape suits her. A decisive woman could "try on" as many as 150 dresses in 15 minutes before the mirror, reducing subsequent actual tryons to the handful of clothes that she really likes.

The first experimental Magic Mirror, backed by the French fashion magazine Elle, has just gone into operation at the Paris department store Au Printemps. A second will be used later this month on the liner La France for trans-atlantic haute couture showings--if a passenger's measurements are already on record in Paris, the dress she selects will be ready when she gets there. Price of the mirror and accompanying projection system is $2,800.

Audio-Visuel France expects to receive an American patent this month, plans to market Magic Mirror in the U.S. soon afterward. For American teen-agers who shop with their mothers, the system will hold a surprise blessing. Said an appreciative young mademoiselle, after a painless session in front of the mirror at Au Printemps: "Now Mother can say no before I go to the trouble of trying on an outfit and falling completely in love with it."

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