Appreciating vintage takes a good amount of research. Getting familiar with production methods, technological milestones and design advances gives us a better understanding of the pieces and where they come from. Every once in a while during our investigations we come across a vintage advertisement for a particular item we actually have in stock. It's always interesting to see the styles in their original context and the captions are often hilarious.

Recently we found these two ads for bras currently in stock. The first is a Hollywood Maxwell V-ETTE Whirlpool bullet bra, and the advertisement dates to 1941. Gorgeous Beryl Wallace, a Broadway dancer and actress made famous by Earl Carroll's Hollywood Theatre, and a headliner for Earl Carroll's Vanities, demonstrates the bras fantastic design, and really who could disagree with that beautiful face and bodacious figure?

The ad describes how the ingenious "whirlpool stitching moulds the bust into youthfully accented curves with well defined separation." It also suggests readers write for "a free booklet with Earl Carroll's measurements for the ideal figure." Carroll was famous for his particular selection of beauties, subjecting candidates to over 20 bodily measurements before consideration.

Note that "Personality" was also a requirement!

At one point we had two of these special new old stock vintage artifacts but some insightful buyer recently snatched one of them up leaving us with just the pink lace version. The classic method of circle stitching  evidenced in this whirlpool bra creates the torpedo shape epitomized in the 40s and 50s, and the carefull design and placement of the straps allowed for maximum lift without the use of stretch fabrics. For more photos and a detailed desctiption check out the Hollywood Maxwell Whirlpool Bras as listed on our website.

The second advertisement came out some 30 years after the V-ette Whirlpool. Unlike the rigid lace of the V-Ette Hollywood Maxwell, the Warner's was constructed almost entirely out of stretch fabrics.

Appropriately named the "Stretchbra" this innovative 1963 Warner's design introduced the idea of using mostly elastic materials in bra construction and more particularly, the advance of elastic straps. Not only did stretch fabrics give the wearer more flexibility and distributed weight more efficiently, the elastic straps of this model could be moved along the shoulder, according to the neckline of the outer garment, without slipping off. This style was such an innovation that several other manufacturers of the day copied the idea, launching an industry wide migration making the elastic strap a standard construction element, and widely popular with the modern woman.

Visit us in store to take a look and try on the Warner's Stretchbra, we have one in black, size 34B.