Frederick's of Hollywood
When Frederick Mellinger started his mail order company for lingerie in the forties, it is unlikely he imagined that fifty years later, his company would own over two hundred stores throughout the United States of America, as well as distributing fifty million and over mail order catalogues per annum.
In the late forties, when good American girls wore white cotton "panties," Frederick Mellinger caused a commotion with his sexy, black panties, bras, and nightgowns. During his stretch as a GI during World War II, Mellinger had done far-reaching research, questioning soldiers about their dream woman and her lingerie. By the time he left the army and went into business, Frederick had decided on his winning formula:
"The company designs each undergarment, whether it is a baby-doll nightgown or push-up bra, to make a woman more alluring to a man and more attractive to herself when she looks in the mirror."
A year later, Mellinger had moved and renamed his company "Frederick's of Hollywood". His sexy lingerie was an instant smash with Hollywood's film stars, complementing as it did, with the glamorous image of the Hollywood lifestyle at the time.
Mellinger owed his achievements to understanding women, and fashion. Film costume designers inspired his "Hollywood Profile" of the 1950s, and fashion-conscious women sought out his pointed, circle-stitched bras, sold under brand names such as Missiles and Snow Cones.
Mellinger had a flair for publicity-"All women are not created equal," said Mellinger, and "No matter how beautiful the outer garment, without the right foundation, the look will be wrong."
His company launched a constant stream of new, pioneering products, from the first padded bra in 1947 to the "Rising Star," the world's first push-up bra 1948. In the sixties came the innovatory "Cadillac" bra, the company's bestseller. It was alleged to change the wearer so much that "you came in looking like a Chevy and left looking like a Cadillac," according to Mellinger. The front-hook bra was designed by Frederick of Hollywood's, as were bras with shoulder pads, padded girdles, and body shapers. There was even the "Mood Stone Panty" which changed colour with the wearer's change of mood, and musical panties were introduced in 1984, which could provide a tune for every occasion from The Wedding March to Happy Birthday.
During the fifties, Mellinger had the courage to market his lingerie in both men's and women's magazines, a strategy which paid off generously. By the seventies, when women were demonstrating against excessive and repressive underwear picketed Mellinger 's flagship store, he had enough media sense to proclaim in public that the "law of gravity will win out." It was excellent publicity, and sales of his bras soared across the continent.
Mellinger always had an aptitude for picking upcoming celebrities to work with him as models in Frederick's of Hollywood's catalogues and advertising as well as his fashion shows. (The actresses Pamela Anderson Lee and Traci Bingham appeared in his lingerie catalogues, and later landed roles in the television series Baywatch.) However, by the early eighties, he had seen the risk in Frederick's of Hollywood associating itself too unashamedly with explicitly sexy lingerie. America's more conventional women wanted good quality typical lingerie which was soft and sensual, but certainly not seedy; the company adjusted its marketing positioning correspondingly.
By the late nineties, Frederick's was extremely successful, with more than 80,000 visitors a year visiting the world's first Lingerie Museum, opened by the company in 1989. Featuring garments worn by Hollywood's stars over the last fifty years, from Ava Gardner's pantaloons to Madonna's bustier. When thieves broke into the museum in 1992, stealing items such as Katy Sagal's bra, ten people tried to claim the reward by presenting copies of the original.
Despite changing trends, Frederick's of Hollywood has kept up with the look of the day while remaining loyal to its founder's original purpose to fulfil women's desire for sensual and soft lingerie. Frederick Mellinger retired
in 1984, and died in 1990, but his company was set to provide the lingerie market with original and groundbreaking garments to the end of the century and beyond the year 2000.
Comments
Post a Comment