Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 19, 1994 TAG: 9403190032
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LONDON LENGTH: Medium
The tempest in a B cup is over the Wonderbra, a feat of fashion engineering that creates cleavage where none existed.
"I swear even I can get cleavage with them," Kate Moss, the model who embodies the curveless waif look, said in the January issue of Vanity fair.
The Wonderbra has been made and sold in Britain for more than 30 years. Now Sara Lee Intimates, makers of the Playtex "cross-your-heart" bra, will start selling it in the United States on May 1. The company is a unit of Sara Lee Corp., Chicago-based operator of knitwear mills in Martinsville and a L'eggs distribution center in Salem.
"Our switchboard has been inundated with retailers and consumers requesting the Wonderbra, based on word-of-mouth news from Britain," said Paul Mischinski, president of Sara Lee Foundations, a subdivision of Sara Lee Intimates.
Priced at $23, the Wonderbra will tap part the $2.6 billion American women spend on bras annually. It's a push-up and plunge underwire garment with a pad in the cup that shoves the breast up and in.
"It's a fairly serious piece of sculpture. But I wouldn't wear it. Too uncomfortable," said shopper Annalise Lloyd, 30, who examined a black lace-and-wire Wonderbra in London's Selfridges department store.
"I would if I could," said aspiring actress Victoria Scott. The 27-year-old Londoner said she donned a Wonderbra. "It looked great from the front, but from the side it was too much."
"If men turn into a jelly-kneed cretins at the sight of lovely cleavage - fine. That's going to give American women the edge they need," said Susanna Hailstone, Wonderbra account director at the TBWA ad agency.
Hailstone masterminded the advertising campaign that has raised breasts and eyebrows - and a few tempers - around Britain.
One billboard shows a blonde woman in black lace panties and overflowing Wonderbra. "Hello boys," she says, eyes downcast towards her enhanced cleavage.
Another caption is borrowed from Mae West: "Or are you just pleased to see me?"
Hailstone said the ads are directed toward "party animals."
"They treat men as sex objects," she said. "If you wear a Wonderbra not only will you feel and look fantastic, you will have `him' wrapped around you little finger."
The Advertising Standards Authority, which received about 40 complaints, ruled this week that the ads weren't offensive.
But Pamela Scott, editor of the London-based lingerie trade magazine Underlines, said what might sell in Britain would offend sensibilities in America.
"In Britain, we're used to bare-breasted women on page 3 of The Sun and all," Scott said, referring to London's racy tabloids. "If they run that campaign in the states, they would be bloody mad. I think feminists would be rioting on the streets."
by CNB