Wonderbra
Encyclopedia
The Wonderbra is a type of push-up underwire
brassiere
that gained worldwide prominence in the 1990s. Although the Wonderbra name was first trademarked in the U.S. in 1935, the brand
was developed in Canada
. Moses (Moe) Nadler, founder and majority owner of the Canadian Lady Corset
Company, licensed the trademark for the Canadian market in 1939. By the 1960s the Canadian Lady brand had become known in Canada as "Wonderbra, the company." In 1961 the company introduced the Model 1300 plunge push-up bra. This bra became one of the best-selling Canadian styles and is virtually identical to today's Wonderbra.
In 1968, Canadian Lady changed its name to Canadian Lady-Canadelle Inc., was sold to Consolidated Foods (now Sara Lee Corporation), and later became Canadelle Inc. During the 1970s Wonderbra was repositioned as the company's fashionable and sexy brand, and became the Canadian market leader.
In 1991, the push-up Wonderbra became a sensation in the UK
, although it had been sold there since 1964 under license by the Gossard division of Courtaulds Textiles
. Sara Lee Corporation did not renew Gossard's license and redesigned the push-up style for the reintroduction of the Wonderbra to the U.S. market in 1994.
Since 1994, the Wonderbra has expanded from the single push-up design into a full-range lingerie
fashion label in most of the world. In most countries, the brand emphasizes sex-appeal. In its native Canada, however, the brand promotes the functional qualities of its products—a departure from the strategy that made Wonderbra the top-seller in the 1970s.
attachment. This innovation on existing bra design provided more comfort and freedom of movement for the wearer. He also coined the name "Wonder-Bra" in 1935.
Israel Pilot's patent , granted in 1941, allowed for greater shoulder strap elasticity by cutting the fabric so that the weave has the greatest stretch (cutting on the "bias"). The photographs show the original patent sketches and close-ups of a bra made in the U.S. by D'Amour. The model is wearing a rare 1950s version of this original Wonder-Bra design.
to make a well fitting, good quality bra in the mid-priced range (from $1.00 to $1.50 retail). As part of this effort, he traveled to New York City
and met with Israel Pilot and licensed the Wonder-Bra trademark and diagonal slash patent. In Canada, the trademark lost the hyphen, and became "WonderBra," and "Wonderbra" at the U.S. reintroduction.
During the wartime years, Canadian apparel manufacturers were subject to quotas on materials. Elastics were unavailable, affecting the comfort and design of women's underwear. The diagonal slash offered a better fitting brassiere without elastics, and became a competitive advantage.
From 1939 - 1955, Canadian Lady marketed several lines of intimate apparel including girdles, panties, slips, swimsuits, and brassieres under the Wonderbra brand. The Company also created sub-brands to target different socioeconomic and lifestyle segments of the consumer market. In contrast, the U.S. market for Wonder-Bra stagnated while the brand was owned by Israel Pilot's companies. In 1952, Canadian Lady launched Petal Burst with anticipation of tough negotiations with D'Amour—Israel Pilot's U.S. company—around the expiration of the patent in 1955. This new line also adapted to a new fashion trend towards a pointed bust, inspired by Christian Dior's
"New Look". The Petal Burst by Wonderbra line was successful and delivered 50% of bra sales by 1957.
The post-patent negotiations were led by Moe Nadler. D'Amour no longer had leverage with a patent, but still demanded that Canadian Lady stop using the designs, and return the pattern templates. Moe Nadler ignored this demand and instead successfully acquired the Canadian, European, and Asian rights to the Wonderbra trademarks. This allowed the company to move forward into the 1960s with the brand intact. By the mid 1960s Canadian Lady was exporting and licensing the Wonderbra line to Western Europe
, Australia
, South Africa
, Israel
and the West Indies. In the 1970s, Canadelle acquired the remaining worldwide rights to the trademark, and licensed Giltex (a Canadian pantyhose manufacturer acquired by Sara Lee in the 1980s) to use the Wonderbra brand on hosiery in Canada.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the majority of women were still wearing highly-structured undergarments. Girdle
s were considered the ladylike norm and represented close to 40% of industry sales by volume. The 1960s also brought to Canadian Lady the challenges of feminism
, fashion
s and the sexual revolution
. The feminist movement—cultured by thought leaders like Betty Friedan
and Germaine Greer
—questioned the mores that defined women's roles and appearance. Changes in fashion trends, such as pantyhose
and the rise of the miniskirt
, rendered the girdle unattractive and obsolete to a generation of women. While the intimate apparel industry fretted about bra-burning as a precursor to the decline of all foundation garment sales, women reserved their animosity for their girdles. The Canadian sales data for foundation undergarments
, from 1960 to 1971, vividly demonstrates the shift in tastes.
It was against this backdrop that the Canadian Lady Corset Company had to act. In 1964, Moe Nadler died and his son, Larry Nadler inherited control of the company. Larry Nadler was a Harvard
-trained MBA and brought modern marketing strategies
to the industry. He commissioned market research
that identified women's feelings about intimate apparel. Women did not hate their bras. Rather, they saw bras as a means to feel and look beautiful, to be fashionable and sexy, and to attract men. While women sometimes went bra-less, they were making a fashion choice and not a political statement. Canadian Lady's management knew that girdles were out, but bras would remain an essential part of women's wardrobes. So during the 1960s, while competitors were cutting back on their bra marketing and diversifying into other products, Canadian Lady aggressively pursued bra market share.
Later, Larry Nadler identified an age based bifurcation in the market. Younger women (aged 15 to 20) regarded their bras as an enhancement to their sexuality but were not interested in a heavily structured garment. Nadler learned that women wanted "less bra," not "no bra." In 1974, they introduced a new line of brassieres for teens called Dici (by Wonderbra), and invented new hot fabric molding technologies to shape the cup. These bras were seamless and simply designed with less support than the typical bra of the period. The company designed special packaging in the shape of a die (with holes).
Instead of being hidden "unmentionables", Wonderbras became more visible icons of female sex-appeal. The company also used pricing to promote Wonderbra as a luxury product with the highest price of any mass-merchandised brand. This strategy also provided greater profits in a very competitive industry. The goal was to have women see their Wonderbras as a cosmetic—a beauty enhancer—rather than a functional garment. Playtex
, the leading brand at the time, promoted the ease of care and durability of their girdles and brassieres.
Beginning in 1967, the advertising focused exclusively on Wonderbra brand brassieres. In 1968, Nadler hired Goodis Advertising to develop the new campaign. The Wonderbra ads were based on fashion and emotional appeal. In various ads, the man would appear as fashion photographer
(in a fashion shoot) or fashion buyer (at a fashion show). The storyline suggested an attraction or budding romance between the man and the women. The voice-over
and jingle featured a man's voice and the commercial showed an actual woman's torso naked except for a bra. All other television ads before this era showed brassieres on a manikin or a dressmaker's dummy to promote the functional features of the product. Every Wonderbra advertisement contained versions of the musical theme, "We care about the shape you're in. Wonderful, wonderful, Wonderbra". The 1979 television campaign included a commercial directed by Richard Avedon
which won a Silver award for television advertisements shown in Canada.
The Dici by Wonderbra television advertisements started in 1974. The brand was positioned to young women as a more natural alternative to the heavily-structured bras worn by their mothers. The animated ads featured the iconic die-shaped packaging. A bra exited the box like a bird, then metamorphosed into a seagull and flew away. The tagline reinforced a spirit of freedom and nature: "Let it be Dici. Dici or nothing."
Around 1991, Gossard was selling the Wonderbra lines under licenses that were to expire in January 1994. At the time, the plunge style was a good seller in the UK market. Gossard planned to renew their license and had an option to do so under the existing agreement. Instead of simply renewing the agreement, Gossard executives decided to negotiate better terms with Sara Lee.
Soon after the negotiations started, something unexpected happened. In 1992, the plunge style became a hit with British women and sales took off. Between 1991 and 1993, UK sales of that Wonderbra style quadrupled to $28 million, accounting for 12.5% of the $225 million UK branded bra market. Several factors might have contributed to this boom including "an article in British Vogue
on the return of the padded bra, a Vivienne Westwood
-inspired fad for corsetry and that Gaultier
driven yearning for underwear as outerwear". With this surge in sales, Sara Lee decided not to renew the license with Gossard.
In 1994 in the UK, the (Sara Lee) Wonderbra achieved a high profile for its racy Hello Boys campaign. The most famous campaign poster presented model Eva Herzigová
in a Wonderbra gazing down at her breasts with the caption "Hello Boys", ambiguously addressing either male admirers or her breasts. Urban myth attributed a number of car accidents to (male) drivers being distracted by the advertisements. The influential poster was featured in an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum
in London and it was voted in at number 10 in a "Poster of the Century" contest.
The Playtex Division of Sara Lee was given the responsibility of introducing "The Wonderbra" style to the United States. Although the model was already being manufactured in Montreal by Canadelle, Playtex executives decided to take a year to redesign the bra for the U.S. market. They scheduled a late 1994 national launch for the bra. During this period, Gossard introduced to Americans their Ultrabra, with a design similar to the push-up Wonderbra model. Other competitors, including Victoria's Secret
Miracle Bra quickly followed while Playtex retooled the design.
The U.S. Wonderbra rollout included events with Eva Herzigová in New York's Times Square
. The advertisements were toned down in comparison to the earlier UK campaign. The U.S. print and billboard advertising
showed models wearing only the Wonderbra. Underneath read slogans such as "who cares if it's a bad hair day" and "look me in the eyes and tell me that you love me." The $25 Million campaign worked in conjunction to the ongoing media interest in the bra. Although Playtex promoted the authenticity of their "One and Only Wonderbra", the rapid introduction of competitive products meant that the overall U.S. market benefited from a 43% increase in push-up bra sales by the end of 1994.
Following the 1994 relaunch, the U.S. Wonderbra has expanded from the single push-up bra design to a broader lingerie line. The brand remains popular around the world as a product, and a part of the cultural lexicon.
, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of HanesBrands Inc
. HanesBrands Inc. owns the license to sell and distribute apparel products under the Wonderbra trademark in all countries except the member states of the European Union
, several other Europe
an nations and South Africa
; in these other markets, an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners owns the license under the Dim Branded Apparel group which is headquartered in Paris.
On January 3, 2007, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
(CBC-TV) broadcasted the results of their internet poll, in which Canadian respondents ranked the Wonderbra 5th out of the top 50 "Greatest Canadian Inventions"
(after Insulin
, the light bulb and the telephone
, but ahead of the pacemaker
).
In a March 2008 survey of 3,000 UK women, the Wonderbra was reported as the greatest fashion innovation in history. According to one magazine article, survey respondents were nearly unanimous in giving push-up bras the number one position.
In 2009, WonderBra Canada celebrated the 70th anniversary of the brand's Canadian introduction.
Underwire bra
An underwire bra is a brassiere with a wire built into the underside of the cup intended to lift, separate, shape, and provide additional support for a woman's breasts...
brassiere
Brassiere
A brassiere is an undergarment that covers, supports, and elevates the breasts. Since the late 19th century, it has replaced the corset as the most widely accepted method for supporting breasts....
that gained worldwide prominence in the 1990s. Although the Wonderbra name was first trademarked in the U.S. in 1935, the brand
Brand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
was developed in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Moses (Moe) Nadler, founder and majority owner of the Canadian Lady Corset
Corset
A corset is a garment worn to hold and shape the torso into a desired shape for aesthetic or medical purposes...
Company, licensed the trademark for the Canadian market in 1939. By the 1960s the Canadian Lady brand had become known in Canada as "Wonderbra, the company." In 1961 the company introduced the Model 1300 plunge push-up bra. This bra became one of the best-selling Canadian styles and is virtually identical to today's Wonderbra.
In 1968, Canadian Lady changed its name to Canadian Lady-Canadelle Inc., was sold to Consolidated Foods (now Sara Lee Corporation), and later became Canadelle Inc. During the 1970s Wonderbra was repositioned as the company's fashionable and sexy brand, and became the Canadian market leader.
In 1991, the push-up Wonderbra became a sensation in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, although it had been sold there since 1964 under license by the Gossard division of Courtaulds Textiles
Courtaulds
Courtaulds was a United Kingdom-based manufacturer of fabric, clothing, artificial fibres, and chemicals.-Foundation:The Company was founded by George Courtauld and his cousin Peter Taylor in 1794 as a silk, crepe and textile business at Pebmarsh in north Essex trading as George Courtauld & Co...
. Sara Lee Corporation did not renew Gossard's license and redesigned the push-up style for the reintroduction of the Wonderbra to the U.S. market in 1994.
Since 1994, the Wonderbra has expanded from the single push-up design into a full-range lingerie
Lingerie
Lingerie are fashionable and possibly alluring undergarments.Lingerie usually incorporates one or more flexible, stretchy materials like Lycra, nylon , polyester, satin, lace, silk and sheer fabric which are not typically used in more functional, basic cotton undergarments.The term in the French...
fashion label in most of the world. In most countries, the brand emphasizes sex-appeal. In its native Canada, however, the brand promotes the functional qualities of its products—a departure from the strategy that made Wonderbra the top-seller in the 1970s.
Original "Wonder-Bra" design
Before the Second World War broke out, elastic materials were rationed and unavailable for clothing. Israel Pilot designed an improved cup with a diagonal slash, shoulder strapShoulder strap
A shoulder strap is a strap over a shoulder. They are often affixed to women's dresses to support its weight or as part of its style. The term is also applied to carrying bags and to epaulettes.-Carrier shoulder strap:...
attachment. This innovation on existing bra design provided more comfort and freedom of movement for the wearer. He also coined the name "Wonder-Bra" in 1935.
Israel Pilot's patent , granted in 1941, allowed for greater shoulder strap elasticity by cutting the fabric so that the weave has the greatest stretch (cutting on the "bias"). The photographs show the original patent sketches and close-ups of a bra made in the U.S. by D'Amour. The model is wearing a rare 1950s version of this original Wonder-Bra design.
| Original 1941 Patent | 1950 "Wonder-Bra" | Diagonal Slash / Label |
|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
History
In 1939, Moe Nadler founded the Canadian Lady Corset Company. He created a small sewing shop in the heart of MontrealMontreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
to make a well fitting, good quality bra in the mid-priced range (from $1.00 to $1.50 retail). As part of this effort, he traveled to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and met with Israel Pilot and licensed the Wonder-Bra trademark and diagonal slash patent. In Canada, the trademark lost the hyphen, and became "WonderBra," and "Wonderbra" at the U.S. reintroduction.
During the wartime years, Canadian apparel manufacturers were subject to quotas on materials. Elastics were unavailable, affecting the comfort and design of women's underwear. The diagonal slash offered a better fitting brassiere without elastics, and became a competitive advantage.
From 1939 - 1955, Canadian Lady marketed several lines of intimate apparel including girdles, panties, slips, swimsuits, and brassieres under the Wonderbra brand. The Company also created sub-brands to target different socioeconomic and lifestyle segments of the consumer market. In contrast, the U.S. market for Wonder-Bra stagnated while the brand was owned by Israel Pilot's companies. In 1952, Canadian Lady launched Petal Burst with anticipation of tough negotiations with D'Amour—Israel Pilot's U.S. company—around the expiration of the patent in 1955. This new line also adapted to a new fashion trend towards a pointed bust, inspired by Christian Dior's
Christian Dior
Christian Dior , was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, also called Christian Dior.-Life:...
"New Look". The Petal Burst by Wonderbra line was successful and delivered 50% of bra sales by 1957.
The post-patent negotiations were led by Moe Nadler. D'Amour no longer had leverage with a patent, but still demanded that Canadian Lady stop using the designs, and return the pattern templates. Moe Nadler ignored this demand and instead successfully acquired the Canadian, European, and Asian rights to the Wonderbra trademarks. This allowed the company to move forward into the 1960s with the brand intact. By the mid 1960s Canadian Lady was exporting and licensing the Wonderbra line to Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and the West Indies. In the 1970s, Canadelle acquired the remaining worldwide rights to the trademark, and licensed Giltex (a Canadian pantyhose manufacturer acquired by Sara Lee in the 1980s) to use the Wonderbra brand on hosiery in Canada.
Development of the push-up bra
In the late 1950s Moe Nadler started traveling to Europe to find new styles to bring to the Canadian market. In 1960, Wonderbra introduced a lacy, half push-up bra described in Europe as Pigeonnant (meaning "pigeon-breasted" in French). In 1961 Nadler directed Louise Poirier to develop a deeply plunged, laced push-up design, numbered the 1300. Canadian Lady licensed these models, among others, to Gossard in 1964. It was this Wonderbra Model 1300 design that became first a UK success in the early 1990s, a European sensation in 1993, and then the "One and Only Wonderbra" that was finally launched in the U.S. in 1994.Canadian product, 1964 to 1980
Girdle
A girdle is a garment that encircles the lower torso, perhaps extending below the hips, and worn often for support. The word girdle originally meant a belt. In modern English, the term girdle is most commonly used for a form of women's foundation wear that replaced the corset in popularity...
s were considered the ladylike norm and represented close to 40% of industry sales by volume. The 1960s also brought to Canadian Lady the challenges of feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, fashion
Fashion
Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...
s and the sexual revolution
Sexual revolution
The sexual revolution was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the Western world from the 1960s into the 1980s...
. The feminist movement—cultured by thought leaders like Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American writer, activist, and feminist.A leading figure in the Women's Movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the "second wave" of American feminism in the twentieth century...
and Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....
—questioned the mores that defined women's roles and appearance. Changes in fashion trends, such as pantyhose
Pantyhose
Pantyhose are sheer, close-fitting legwear, covering the wearer's body from the waist to the feet. Mostly considered to be a woman's and girl's garment, pantyhose appeared in the 1960s, and they provided a convenient alternative to stockings...
and the rise of the miniskirt
Miniskirt
A miniskirt, sometimes hyphenated as mini-skirt, is a skirt with a hemline well above the knees – generally no longer than below the buttocks; and a minidress is a dress with a similar meaning...
, rendered the girdle unattractive and obsolete to a generation of women. While the intimate apparel industry fretted about bra-burning as a precursor to the decline of all foundation garment sales, women reserved their animosity for their girdles. The Canadian sales data for foundation undergarments
Foundation garment
A foundation garment is an undergarment designed to temporarily alter the wearer's body shape, to achieve a more fashionable figure...
, from 1960 to 1971, vividly demonstrates the shift in tastes.
It was against this backdrop that the Canadian Lady Corset Company had to act. In 1964, Moe Nadler died and his son, Larry Nadler inherited control of the company. Larry Nadler was a Harvard
Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...
-trained MBA and brought modern marketing strategies
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
to the industry. He commissioned market research
Market research
Market research is any organized effort to gather information about markets or customers. It is a very important component of business strategy...
that identified women's feelings about intimate apparel. Women did not hate their bras. Rather, they saw bras as a means to feel and look beautiful, to be fashionable and sexy, and to attract men. While women sometimes went bra-less, they were making a fashion choice and not a political statement. Canadian Lady's management knew that girdles were out, but bras would remain an essential part of women's wardrobes. So during the 1960s, while competitors were cutting back on their bra marketing and diversifying into other products, Canadian Lady aggressively pursued bra market share.
Later, Larry Nadler identified an age based bifurcation in the market. Younger women (aged 15 to 20) regarded their bras as an enhancement to their sexuality but were not interested in a heavily structured garment. Nadler learned that women wanted "less bra," not "no bra." In 1974, they introduced a new line of brassieres for teens called Dici (by Wonderbra), and invented new hot fabric molding technologies to shape the cup. These bras were seamless and simply designed with less support than the typical bra of the period. The company designed special packaging in the shape of a die (with holes).
Brand development
In 1966, Canadian Lady made several important changes to their advertising strategy. They introduced television advertising and changed the emphasis from the product to the brand. Ads attempted to build consumer awareness of the single brand name: Wonderbra. Market research showed that women did not want girdles advertised on television—girdles were seen as armor against sex, while bras provided a means of attraction.
Our Montreal office got the Wonderbra account. This was a Canadian company which held down the Number Two position in women's garmentwear. One of our copywriters came up with the line: "We care about the shape you're in." Larry Nadler, who headed the family business, was a risk-taker. He loved the line and so did we. We had it set to music and prepared a television campaign around it. The CBC turned it down, not because of the line, but because we had the audacity to show a woman in a bra. CTV had no such qualms, which proves how arbitrary the world can be. Eventually, the CBC recanted and ran the campaign. .... The result of the campaign—not just in TV, but other media as well—moved Wonderbra into a solid, first-place position in its field.
- Gerry Goodis, former CEO, Goodis Advertising
Playtex
Playtex and PlayTex are a brand and trademark. It used to be associated with bras and women's undergarments. Currently there are two separate companies with the Playtex name....
, the leading brand at the time, promoted the ease of care and durability of their girdles and brassieres.
Beginning in 1967, the advertising focused exclusively on Wonderbra brand brassieres. In 1968, Nadler hired Goodis Advertising to develop the new campaign. The Wonderbra ads were based on fashion and emotional appeal. In various ads, the man would appear as fashion photographer
Fashion photography
Fashion photography is a genre of photography devoted to displaying clothing and other fashion items. Fashion photography is most often conducted for advertisements or fashion magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, or Elle...
(in a fashion shoot) or fashion buyer (at a fashion show). The storyline suggested an attraction or budding romance between the man and the women. The voice-over
Voice-over
Voice-over is a production technique where a voice which is not part of the narrative is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations...
and jingle featured a man's voice and the commercial showed an actual woman's torso naked except for a bra. All other television ads before this era showed brassieres on a manikin or a dressmaker's dummy to promote the functional features of the product. Every Wonderbra advertisement contained versions of the musical theme, "We care about the shape you're in. Wonderful, wonderful, Wonderbra". The 1979 television campaign included a commercial directed by Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...
which won a Silver award for television advertisements shown in Canada.
The Dici by Wonderbra television advertisements started in 1974. The brand was positioned to young women as a more natural alternative to the heavily-structured bras worn by their mothers. The animated ads featured the iconic die-shaped packaging. A bra exited the box like a bird, then metamorphosed into a seagull and flew away. The tagline reinforced a spirit of freedom and nature: "Let it be Dici. Dici or nothing."
Popularity in Canada
From 1972 to 1977, the company doubled its wholesale revenue from $12.6 million to $24.9 million. By 1979 Canadelle dominated with 30% of the Canadian market and $27 million in sales. Playtex (later acquired by Sara Lee) was second. By 1980, Wonderbra's sales were over $30 million wholesale ($76 million in 2006 dollars) in a country with only 10.3 million women and girls older than 13.Worldwide reintroduction, 1991 to 1994
"I've got a couple of those Gossard Wonderbras. They are so brilliant, I swear, even I get cleavage with them."
– Kate Moss
Kate MossKate Moss is an English model. Moss is known for her waifish figure and popularising the heroin chic look in the 1990s. She is also known for her controversial private life, high profile relationships, party lifestyle, and drug use. Moss changed the look of modelling and started a global debate on...
, 1994, New York Times Magazine
Around 1991, Gossard was selling the Wonderbra lines under licenses that were to expire in January 1994. At the time, the plunge style was a good seller in the UK market. Gossard planned to renew their license and had an option to do so under the existing agreement. Instead of simply renewing the agreement, Gossard executives decided to negotiate better terms with Sara Lee.
Soon after the negotiations started, something unexpected happened. In 1992, the plunge style became a hit with British women and sales took off. Between 1991 and 1993, UK sales of that Wonderbra style quadrupled to $28 million, accounting for 12.5% of the $225 million UK branded bra market. Several factors might have contributed to this boom including "an article in British Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
on the return of the padded bra, a Vivienne Westwood
Vivienne Westwood
Dame Vivienne Westwood, DBE, RDI is a British fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream.-Early life:...
-inspired fad for corsetry and that Gaultier
Jean-Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier , born 24 April 1952 in Arcueil, Val-de-Marne, France) is a French haute couture fashion designer. Gaultier was the creative director of Hermès from 2003 to 2010. In the past, he has hosted the television series Eurotrash....
driven yearning for underwear as outerwear". With this surge in sales, Sara Lee decided not to renew the license with Gossard.
In 1994 in the UK, the (Sara Lee) Wonderbra achieved a high profile for its racy Hello Boys campaign. The most famous campaign poster presented model Eva Herzigová
Eva Herzigová
Eva Herzigová is a Czech model and actress.-Early life and career:Herzigová was born in Litvínov, Czechoslovakia . She began her modeling career after winning a modeling beauty contest in Prague in 1989, at the age of sixteen. After arriving in Paris, her popularity increased...
in a Wonderbra gazing down at her breasts with the caption "Hello Boys", ambiguously addressing either male admirers or her breasts. Urban myth attributed a number of car accidents to (male) drivers being distracted by the advertisements. The influential poster was featured in an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
in London and it was voted in at number 10 in a "Poster of the Century" contest.
The Playtex Division of Sara Lee was given the responsibility of introducing "The Wonderbra" style to the United States. Although the model was already being manufactured in Montreal by Canadelle, Playtex executives decided to take a year to redesign the bra for the U.S. market. They scheduled a late 1994 national launch for the bra. During this period, Gossard introduced to Americans their Ultrabra, with a design similar to the push-up Wonderbra model. Other competitors, including Victoria's Secret
Victoria's Secret
Victoria's Secret is an American retailer of women's wear, lingerie and beauty products. It is the largest segment of publicly-traded Limited Brands with sales of over US$5 billion and an operating income of $1 billion in 2006...
Miracle Bra quickly followed while Playtex retooled the design.
The U.S. Wonderbra rollout included events with Eva Herzigová in New York's Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
. The advertisements were toned down in comparison to the earlier UK campaign. The U.S. print and billboard advertising
Billboard (advertising)
A billboard is a large outdoor advertising structure , typically found in high traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertisements to passing pedestrians and drivers...
showed models wearing only the Wonderbra. Underneath read slogans such as "who cares if it's a bad hair day" and "look me in the eyes and tell me that you love me." The $25 Million campaign worked in conjunction to the ongoing media interest in the bra. Although Playtex promoted the authenticity of their "One and Only Wonderbra", the rapid introduction of competitive products meant that the overall U.S. market benefited from a 43% increase in push-up bra sales by the end of 1994.
Following the 1994 relaunch, the U.S. Wonderbra has expanded from the single push-up bra design to a broader lingerie line. The brand remains popular around the world as a product, and a part of the cultural lexicon.
Recent developments
In 2006, Sara Lee sold its intimate apparel brands. The Wonderbra trademark is the property of Canadelle Limited Partnership of CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of HanesBrands Inc
Hanes
Hanes and Hanes Her Way are brands of apparel currently owned by the HanesBrands, Inc Corporation...
. HanesBrands Inc. owns the license to sell and distribute apparel products under the Wonderbra trademark in all countries except the member states of the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
, several other Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an nations and South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
; in these other markets, an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners owns the license under the Dim Branded Apparel group which is headquartered in Paris.
On January 3, 2007, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
(CBC-TV) broadcasted the results of their internet poll, in which Canadian respondents ranked the Wonderbra 5th out of the top 50 "Greatest Canadian Inventions"
The Greatest Canadian Invention
The Greatest Canadian Invention is a television mini-series originally aired on CBC Television. It is a spiritual sequel to The Greatest Canadian....
(after Insulin
Insulin
Insulin is a hormone central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle....
, the light bulb and the telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
, but ahead of the pacemaker
Cardiac pacemaker
right|thumb|350px|Image showing the cardiac pacemaker which is the SA nodeThe contraction of heart muscle in all animals with hearts is initiated by chemical impulses. The rate at which these impulses fire controls the heart rate...
).
In a March 2008 survey of 3,000 UK women, the Wonderbra was reported as the greatest fashion innovation in history. According to one magazine article, survey respondents were nearly unanimous in giving push-up bras the number one position.
In 2009, WonderBra Canada celebrated the 70th anniversary of the brand's Canadian introduction.
External links
- Official Canadian Wonderbra website
- Official U.S. Wonderbra website
- http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/scripts/viewobject.php?Lang=1&accessnumber=M2007.54.3High resolution image of an original Model 1300 plunge, push-up bra (c.1965-1969) at the McCord MuseumMcCord MuseumThe McCord Museum is a public research and teaching museum dedicated to the preservation, study, diffusion, and appreciation of Canadian history...
.] - Canadian Broadcasting Corp. The Greatest Canadian Invention
- Slideshow of important bra styles at 70th anniversary exhibition
- 1960s - 1970s Canadian Wonderbra Television Ads
- 1968 Original Wonderbra Television Ad
- 1968 Wonderbra Television Ad - Fashion Shoot in Studio
- 1969 Wonderbra Television Ad - Woman in bra
- 1974 Dici by Wonderbra Television Ad - Teens
- 1975 Wonderbra Television Ad
- 1979 Wonderbra Television Ad - Directed by Richard Avedon