Word: maidenform
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...helping nature, Ida Rosenthal has probably had a greater impact on the U.S. female form than all the couturiers in Paris. On any day, she estimates, 20% of all U.S. women-or 13 million-are wearing one of her Maidenform bras; 30% of U.S. women own at least one Maidenform. In 115 countries, 20 different styles of Maidenform, dubbed with such fetching names as Arabesque, Sweet Music and Chansonette, shape the contours of debutantes and matrons alike. Maidenform has become a part of the language, thanks to ads featuring women who dreamed they did everything from shopping to being...
...Rosenthal has her own version of aid to underdeveloped countries. Her fastest growing market is overseas, where traditionally braless European women are becoming more sophisticated, and women in many lands have newly emancipated themselves into Western dress. Maidenform is opening accounts even in the bare-breasted tropical islands, e.g., in Papua and Fernando Po. Next spring Mrs. Rosenthal plans to personally invade Russia, where she was born. "I'd like the Russian women to wear Maidenform bras," she says. "They'll look better, they'll feel better, and maybe we'll get along better...
SELLING nearly 10% of all U.S. bras, Maidenform last year took in $34 million, expects a 5% increase in sales this year. Most of it came from the world's best brassiere customer, the U.S. woman. Maidenform's average customer is 24-25 years old, wears size 34B, and frequently (one customer in eight) wants padding in her bra. She is also hard to please. "A woman," says Mrs. Rosenthal, "is a very funny creature. You have to sell her the right size and right type, but what she wants to hear about is fashion. Not only...
...brassiere end of the business quickly eclipsed the dresses. Maidenform was founded in 1923 with Mrs. Rosenthal's husband William as a partner. It grew fast, especially in the 1930s, when fashions forsook the boyish look. Mr. Rosenthal designed the brassieres and Mrs. Rosenthal handled the sales and financing. Maidenform pioneered in mass production, time studies and special machinery to make brassieres. During World War II, recalls Mrs. Rosenthal, "we got priority because women workers who wore an uplift were less fatigued than others...
NOTHING gave Maidenform a better uplift than the launching of its famous "I dreamed" campaign in 1949. Dreamed up by a woman copywriter for a Manhattan ad firm (now Norman, Craig & Kummel), the ad drew little enthusiasm at first, even from Ida Rosenthal. It soon caught fire, despite protests that it was risque. "We love double meanings," says Beatrice Coleman, Mrs. Rosenthal's daughter and the firm's chief designer, "so long as the double meaning is decent." Maidenform now spends 10% of its sales on advertising, mostly on the "I dreamed" ads. "Let them go on dreaming...