Everything you ever wanted to know about the company
that gave us the Eighteen-Hour Girdle and all those great ads.
Several recent posts on Playtex and other rubber girdles create the impression that these were fashion icons of the 50's and 60's and perhaps the later years of the 40's. A bit of checking through New York Times microfilms and a few other sources show an even earlier history.
As has been pointed out, rubber girdles had been around for some time, some unabashedly sold as reducing garments. One source said that the original girdle vice corset by Poiret was in rubber. Both Gloria Swanson and Coco Chanel claim joint credit for the invention of the panty girdle to hide Ms. Swanson's pregnancy during a filming. Ms. Swanson said (much later) they were of "rubber". Ms. Chanel said they were made from "surgical material", which is ambiguous and could be a sloppy translation from French.
Others in these postings have referred to Charnaux of England making an all-rubber girdle from the early 30s and the "History of Underclothes" shows an illustration. American pulp magazines in the late 30's showed the "Perforlator" (a perforated open-bottom girdle) and extolled its reducing capabilities. I.B. Kleinert (still in the notions business) advertised rubber girdles, some as reducers throughout the 1930's. An unintentionally funny ad circa 1937 in Vogue (American) shows an open-bottom Kleinert with half the circumference in rubber and half in fabric. If a woman desired sweating reduction on the derriere, the rubber half went there; if she desired tummy reduction she would put the rubber half on that side.
In the spring of 1939, one of the New York department stores had a feature ad of panty girdle briefs (quite rare then) which included an unperforated rubber brief by Kleinert, advertised as having reducing properties. It was sold for $5.00, which was a day's wages for many people then. This brief can be seen (unattributed) in a LIFE magazine article the next year, in which the model wearing the brief is cast in plaster as a form for a mannikin.
Playtex was the brainchild of Abram Nathaniel Spanel (1901-1985), an inventor with over two thousand patents. He established International Latex Co. (now Playtex International) in 1932 after he became a millionaire on an earlier invention - a garment bag to which a vacuum cleaner could be attached to remove moths. The "Play" in Playtex seems to come from the first ILC product I saw advertised - latex panties and sun hats for external wear by toddlers for play clothes (not as diaper covers). They must not have caught on, for I saw no other ads. The remainder of the 30's, ILC advertised conventional notions such as shoulder covers for shampooing, aprons, and the like.
The first Playtex girdle advertised was in the NY Times of March 10, 1940. The ad said "as new as this edition of the paper". The ad for a department store had a photograph of an unworn panty brief with perforations only on the crotch piece, and a line drawing of it being worn. The possibility of being worn under swim suits was mentioned - something Playtex mentioned until briefs were discontinued. Two weeks later, Abraham and Strauss had an ad showing a rear view photograph of a model wearing the garment - very rare since 99% of fashion ads back then were line drawings. Included in the ad was a coupon for mail ordering - a feature Playtex and their cooperating stores used in newspaper ads for years. Much was made of the fact that they were molded, not seamed, and were made of latex, not "an old-fashioned rubber garment". (I may understand the distinction someday). By today's standards the model seemed a bit hefty. The price was $2.00.
Shortly, a week or two after, Kleinert introduced the "Sportime Brief", like the Playtex, perforated only on the crotch piece. It cost only $1.00 and came in a "Jewel Box". Kleinert made much of the fact that their product was rubber and was doubled over at the waist and leg openings, and thus would not dig into the wearers' skin. (The presumption being that the molded Playtex would dig in). Later that spring, LIFE had a full page ad featuring the Playtex brief with about three or four pictures of the model flexed in several positions. It had a mail-in coupon. LIFE later claimed that 200,000 sales were made based on that ad.
That summer - which had a major heat wave - LIFE had an editorial feature on lightweight "summer girdles" with photos of four styles (three fabric, one Playtex) all worn by the same rather zaftig model. A three-quarters rear view of the panty brief was shown with the caption that it made the wearer perspire freely and that perforations gave the only ventilation. Perforations were only on the bottom. Throughout that spring most New York department stores had ads for the Playtex brief. Sacks Fifth Avenue had the sparest of line drawings. All of these ads were against the backdrop of the disasters of the European war, including Dunkerque and the fall of France.
The next year, 1941, showed the introduction of the Playtex open-bottom, gartered girdle and Mademoiselle had monthly ads showing all three major styles: brief, open-bottom, and panty with garters. By now all were perforated all over. By now, war clouds and the general nervousness over rubber supplies dried up the ads after spring of 1941. Sears-Roebuck's Fall 41/Spring 42 catalog advertised Playtex, but noted they might not be available. Pearl Harbor sealed their doom until 1947 when rubber supplies became available. This, of course, affected anything made with rubber, including tires and elastic foundations. In comparison with standard girdles of the day, the Playtex briefs must have been comparatively "liberating". The line drawings of fabric girdles of the era give the impression they were quite formidable, if indeed a reform from the earlier corsets.
A.N. Spanel appears to have been an interesting sort. He was noted for years for placing paid political commentaries in major newspapers. He was a fairly progressive industrialist for the era and ILC was among the first companies to air-condition its facilities for workers' comfort, and among the first to introduce profit-sharing. Spanel's leaning were so "liberal" that columnist Westbrook Pegler (sort of a Rush Limbaugh of his day) accused Spanel of communist leanings in 1945. This was a kiss of death in the era just before McCarthy. Spanel sued for six million dollars and won a public retraction. He was a noted philanthropist in the medical research field and voluntarily remanded 1.5 million dollars of his wartime profits from government contracts back to the government.
N.B: The analysis above is wholly mine, based upon limited availability of New York Times microfilms, a few fashion magazines of the era, and the New York Times obituary of A.N. Spanel, April 2, 1985. It is not intended to be an exhaustive study, nor an authoritative history of ILC.
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