S P Mani may not know his Marks and Spencer from his Jack and Jones, but boy does he know about the mannequins that wear the clothes. The 57-year-old entrepreneur from Erode, a handmade paper maker for the past quarter of a century, is now making heads turn, reels spin, and fashion houses take note with his biodegradable mannequins, made wholly out of textile waste and entirely out of his factory at Kaliyanoor village near Pallipalayam, Erode. Mannequins that he assures you can be laid to rest in the ground to decompose at the end of their retail lives, bringing to an end the vicious cycle of waste generated by the fashion industry.
Mani and his wife Amutha founded Jothi Speciality Papers (JSP) 25 years ago after realising how much textile waste was ending up in landfills, leading them into a journey in circular economy solutions. “We came up with a way to convert textile waste — as an alternative to tree-derived — into paper,” says Mani, who makes paper out of cotton, linen, and denim.
Paper led the couple to think about how else they could repurpose textile waste, which was when they hit upon the idea of eco-friendly mannequins. “It is a five-day 20-step process to create a mannequin. We fashion it out of the sludge generated when the paper is made,” says Mani, who began working on the idea during the pandemic, and launched his first mannequin in Dec 2024. “Everything in the process and material is biodegradable, from the glue we use to the fact that we use sunlight for drying to avoid carbon emissions.”
JSP’s first client was Tanishq, for which he makes 1,500 busts to showcase jewellery, a collaboration, which he says has led to a 40% increase in demand for his eco-friendly display busts. “We are in talks with several retail houses now.” Currently, JSP produces 200 mannequins a month for clients in India, Saudi Arabia and the US and is eying the Australian market. The mannequins cost between 5,000 and 15,000. Each mannequin weighs about 20kg, though larger ones can go up to 40kg-50kg. “About 40kg of textile waste is used to make one mannequin.”
Though he hardly shops, Mani, who is always dressed in unbranded cotton clothes, says he has started frequenting apparel stores and fashion boutiques now. Not to see what’s on the shelves, but to see the actual shelves. “That’s how I got the idea of sustainable hangers, which we are launching in a few months,” says Mani, who is now tinkering with eco-friendly clothing racks and dustbins. “We’ve mastered clothing tags made in cotton-blend with embedded seeds to promote sustainability.”
Although the Indian mannequin market is projected to hit $800 million (by 2030), it’s mostly for the ones made out of the unrecyclable fibreglass. So unrecyclable that there is even a ‘graveyard’ for unwanted mannequins in England, a tourist spot now that’s home to 10,000 dummies that are rehired weekly or upcycled.
“Fibreglass reinforced plastic mannequins, commonly used in retail, are non-recyclable,” says Dominic Dsilva, founder of Perth-based Urvara which works in sustainable fashion and which is partnering with JSP for a debut in Australia at the Circular Fashion Festival this Oct. “Even blasting them down into bits is detrimental to air quality. Most mannequins either end up in landfills or are burned, both of which are bad for the environment. That’s why biodegradable mannequins are the way to go if you truly want a circular economy.”
JSP’s mannequins, says Mani, take about three months to decompose. “Faster if they are broken into pieces before burying.”
Currently in India, there are only a handful of eco-friendly mannequin makers. Kolkata-based Kirti Jalan Design Studio is one, where mannequins are made out of cane. “Our buyers are mostly fashion designers from across the country,” says owner Kirti, whose mannequins are priced at 13,500 apiece. “While demand is growing, the higher price and longer production time compared to fibreglass mannequins make it difficult to take on bulk orders.”
Still, every piece counts, say these manufacturers, as it brings the fashion industry a step closer to sustainability — one dummy at a time.