Judi Henderson-Townsend describes herself as an accidental entrepreneur. She had no interest in business and only ventured into the sphere on a whim. From a side hustle renting out mannequins, she has built a global enterprise with millions of dollars in annual sales. Henderson-Townsend has made a name for herself in the industry as “The Mannequin Queen.”
“I am an accidental entrepreneur so nothing really inspired it. I was looking for a mannequin one day for an art project, I wanted to put it in my garden, and I was surfing on craigslist and saw a guy was selling what I thought was one mannequin. It turned out he had fifty mannequins to sell and I was kind of amazed by all these mannequins,” Henderson-Townsend explained how she became “The Mannequin Queen.”
A journalism graduate from the University of Southern California, she spent over 20 years working at Fortune 500 companies. She worked in sales for large corporations Johnson & Johnson and United Airlines and then joined a small dot-com company. While looking for for a mannequin for an art project, Henderson-Townsend saw a vendor selling mannequins on Craigslist. She checked out his entire collection of around 50 dummies, searching for the best pick for her garden. She had a revelation when the vendor revealed he would be leaving the state.
The vendor’s pending departure would leave the Bay Area without a mannequin rental business. Henderson-Townsend figured that there should be at least one place to rent a mannequin as the area has such a creative community. She saw an opportunity to become an entrepreneur and bought the entire inventory for about $2,500. For a year, she ran the rental business as a side hustle until her employer closed shop.
Henderson-Townsend initially faced challenges finding more inventory. She asked department stores to give or sell her their used mannequins so that she would recycle them by selling to smaller retail stores, eBay vendors, and other interested buyers. It was a win win solution for both parties as retailers often have to pay large sums of money to dispose of the bulky, non-biodegradable forms. Sears was the first to welcome her idea, sending hundreds of used mannequins and Nordstrom, Ralph Lauren and Kohl’s soon followed.
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The business was growing faster than Henderson-Townsend’s house could hold. She had 500 mannequins in her basement, backyard, and garage stalls. After coming back from a long vacation, she found a note from city officials about all the inventory in her driveway. It was the push she needed. Henderson-Townsend moved into a bigger space, a 1,300-square-foot warehouse that allowed her to expand the business.
She has since created a network of about 40 independent mannequin suppliers all over the country. Henderson-Townsend serves as a broker, connecting retailers who wish to recycle or buy mannequins to small suppliers in a variety of major cities. She has recycled more than 400,000 pounds of mannequins and won an award from the Environmental Protection Agency for recycling more than 100,000 pounds of mannequins in one year. Her company, Mannequin Madness is now a global enterprise with millions of dollars in annual sales.
“My clients include everybody from struggling fashion students to high-end department stores. I’m the Jay-Z of Mannequins,” Henderson-Townsend said of her business.
