Many of those too young to remember probably know about the ad campaign that Maidenform ran from the end of World War II up through the mid-1960's. It was the one with gorgeous ladies, their bottoms modestly clad but their tops ensconced only in their bras, dreaming they "went shopping" - or rode fire trucks, or crossed the Nile on Cleopatra's barge - "in their Maidenform bras."
It was shockingly risqué for the time - in fact, Mad Magazine spoofed the campaign in 1962, with "I dreamed I was arrested for indecent exposure in my Maidenform bra." But, it sure sold a lot of undergarments.
But you won't pick any of that up from the three-part billboard that since Sept. 21 has towered over the southwest corner of 35th Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan - right across the street from Macy's, one of Maidenform's major channels. It sports a beautiful young woman, shown from the waist up, wearing nothing but a bra. The ad copy is equally spare: "Introducing the dream bra."
But while the words say little, the model's look speaks volumes: She manages to be sultry and innocent and, well, dreamy.
"Maidenform has always had this emotional connection with women, an understanding of their aspirations, and that is what we are stressing now," said Elizabeth Morris, Maidenform's vice president for marketing.
For Maidenform, it is a repeat of history even beyond the retro-chic ad campaign. The company was founded during the Flapper Era of the 1920's, on the then-radical premise that women who were routinely binding and flattening their breasts would really rather have them lifted and contoured. Its founders were right - women bought bras in droves, and the company took off.
Dreaming of Bras for the Modern Woman article
