Clothing Company Definitions — United States clothing company definitions from Apparel Search
Maidenform is a brand of women's underwear founded in 1922 by three people: seamstress Ida Rosenthal, Enid Bissett, who owned the shop that employed her, and Ida's husband William Rosenthal. They rebelled against the flat-chested designs of the time and instead produced both dresses and support undergarments, particularly bras that accentuated the natural shape of a woman's figure, which is the idea behind the name Maidenform. The company was founded in Bayonne, New Jersey, and in October 2007 its headquarters moved to Iselin, New Jersey.
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The company was founded in Bayonne, New Jersey, and although no manufacturing facilities remain in Bayonne today, some company facilities are still located there. In October 2007, the company's headquarters moved to a new location in Iselin, New Jersey.
After going through a long restructuring effort at the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, Maidenform became a publicly traded company in July, 2005.
An imaginary situation of a partially undressed dream was exploited in Maidenform's advertising in the 1950s and 1960s - "I dreamed I...[doing some ordinary activity]... in my Maidenform bra.", with an illustration of the person wearing only underwear in a public place, appearing proud and cheerful. This campaign was referenced in a season 2 episode of Mad Men, in which competitor Playtex, who (fictionally) has an account with the Sterling Cooper ad agency, asks Sterling Cooper to change their older-style ads to one more similar to Maidenform's.
The above definition about the clothing company Maidenform is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. The information source is from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and was originally obtained from the following page address https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/maidenform. The definition has been modified by the Apparel Search Company in June 2009. The rest of this page and other pages on Apparel Search are NOT under the free document license.
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Maidenform began with a disagreement about shape. In the early 1920s the fashionable silhouette favoured a flat-chested look, and the undergarments of the period were designed to achieve it. Ida Rosenthal, a seamstress working in the shop owned by Enid Bissett, took the opposite view, and together with Bissett and her husband William Rosenthal she founded Maidenform in Bayonne, New Jersey in 1922. The new company produced both dresses and support undergarments, particularly bras designed to accentuate the natural shape of a woman's figure rather than suppress it. The name itself states the idea: a form shaped by the garment's construction, not forced flat by it.
That single design decision shaped a whole category. A bra that supports and shapes has to do real engineering work in a very small garment. The band carries much of the support and must fit firmly without digging in, the cups must be cut and seamed, or later moulded, to hold a rounded shape, and the straps adjust the fit rather than carry the whole load. Sizing combines a band measurement with a cup size, so a maker in this category has to produce and stock a far wider range of sizes than a maker of a simple one-size garment, and small errors in pattern or elastic show up immediately in comfort. Fabrics matter just as much: a support garment is worn against the skin all day, so materials need stretch, recovery and smoothness under outer clothing, and lace or trim has to be placed so it does not irritate or show through.
The company's early combination of dresses and undergarments is also instructive. A dressmaker who also makes the undergarments worn beneath dresses understands fit from both sides, because the outer garment only hangs as intended when the foundation under it is right. That close relationship between intimate apparel and the clothes worn over it is why foundation garments became a specialism of their own, with its own fitting expertise in stores and its own language of bands, cups, straps and closures.
Maidenform's advertising gave the brand a public identity well beyond the fitting room. Its best known campaign, run in the 1950s and 1960s, used an imaginary dream situation built around the line “I dreamed I...” followed by an ordinary activity, illustrated with a cheerful wearer in a public setting. The campaign was memorable enough to be referenced decades later in a second-season episode of the television series Mad Men, in which the fictional agency Sterling Cooper is asked by competitor Playtex to make its older-style advertising more like Maidenform's. Campaigns of that kind mattered commercially as well as creatively, because intimate apparel is bought on trust in fit and quality, and a famous name lowers the risk a customer feels when choosing a garment she cannot properly judge until she wears it.
The company's later history follows a pattern common to older American apparel brands. After a long restructuring effort at the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, Maidenform became a publicly traded company in July 2005. Although no manufacturing facilities remain in Bayonne today, some company facilities are still located there, and in October 2007 the headquarters moved to a new location in Iselin, New Jersey. A brand founded by a seamstress, a shop owner and her husband in 1922 thus continued into the public-company era, still centred on the same product idea it started with: undergarments constructed for support and natural shape, made in a full range of sizes, and sold on fit as much as on fabric or decoration.
The category Maidenform helped define remains one of the most fit-sensitive in all of clothing. Two garments with the same labelled size can feel completely different depending on pattern, fabric stretch and construction, so experienced makers and retailers build fitting knowledge, consistent sizing across a range and clear size guidance into the product itself. That is also why a long-established name carries weight here more than in many other categories: a customer replacing a garment that fits well tends to return to the maker whose sizing she already knows, rather than start the fitting process again with an unfamiliar brand.
Maidenform was founded in 1922 by seamstress Ida Rosenthal, Enid Bissett, who owned the shop that employed her, and Ida's husband William Rosenthal. The company was founded in Bayonne, New Jersey.
Maidenform is a brand of women's underwear known for support undergarments, particularly bras that accentuated the natural shape of a woman's figure, in contrast to the flat-chested designs of the early 1920s.
After a long restructuring effort at the end of the 1990s and early 2000s, Maidenform became a publicly traded company in July 2005. Its headquarters moved to Iselin, New Jersey in October 2007.