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When 19-year-old Ida Rosenthal set up a dress business in New Jersey in 1906, less than a year after emigrating from Minsk, the brassiere had a very different function than it has now. After Society Girl Caresse Crosby designed a brassiere in 1913 (it took its name from the French word for a child's undershirt), it was worn as a sort of chest-height cummerbund to flatten and camouflage women for the boyish look. When Mrs. Rosenthal moved into New York and set up a dress shop with a woman partner in 1922, she noticed that the dresses she was selling often did not look well on women who bought them. With her partner she designed simple brassieres with form and uplift, gave them away with each dress.
The 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," says Mrs. Rosenthal. "We have our eyes open."
Indeed she has. When Mrs. Rosenthal's husband died in 1958, she took over as chairman, moved from their 18-room Long Island mansion to a three-room apartment in Manhattan, where a chauffeur calls at 9 each morning to take her to Maidenform's headquarters in Manhattan's garter belt. She personally adds up the new orders each morning to "see if the salesmen are working or playing golf," travels around the U.S. to see how her bras are faring in stores. "Quality we give them," she says. "Delivery we give them. I add personality."
Next January Maidenform will put on sale a new line of women's swimsuits equipped with Maidenform bras. Mrs. Rosenthal also thinks that there is a market for sleeping brassieres, hopes to produce a looser Maidenform for the bedroom. The company is also studying synthetic fibers that may eventually replace rubber elastic. From the girl of twelve to the woman of 80, Ida Rosenthal (one of her own best customers) believes that nature can still stand a lot of improving.