Maidenform Masquerade Party or a Scene From The Little Shop of Horrors?

Hididilly Ho Swimwear and Lingerie Junkies.

Happy Totally Retro Tuesday to you.

Don’t you just love Maidenform Ads? I do. They’re quirky, peculiar and rife with so much weirdness, that an overly-critical women’s lib-er, like me, can rif until the cows come home or at least start grazing on her bizarro vegetative headpiece.

Maidenform "I Dreamed I..." Ad- Masquerade

Seriously. WTF is up with all the greenery coming out of her ear? I get that she’s dreaming that she’s at a masquerade but what the heck is she dressed up as?

Maybe she’s “Audrey” from The Little Shop of Horrors… that would explain the creeptastic predatory plant reaching out to munch on the other similarly attired pinup-esque girls she’s dreaming about.

Audrey the flesh eating plant from Little Shop of Horrors

Then again perhaps we should question why she has misplaced her top, as have all the other young ladies she is dreaming about.

Hmmm. Sappho Approves of the Dancing Ladies

You will note there are no men at this fabulous little masquerade, so we are left with either a subversive nod to the repressed lesbian desires of middle class lingerie buying women, with all the sapphic dancing girls or a really odd initiation at an all women’s sorority or group…which also leads back to the clustering of women-centric activities… either way she’s smiling and happy to be surrounded by like-minded friends and I say you go on and get down with your party-self honey!

These girls are just a "Maidenform" moment away from complete reckless abandon!

It’s kind of an interesting idea when you think about it. A lingerie company, like Maidenform, with a vested interest in appealing to the status quo, which would be the hetero-normative group of the era, is advertising a rather libertine and naughty (according to the ultra-conservative mindset of the time) little fantasy series…were they trying to appeal to the younger, wilder, demographic, while appeasing their established customer-base with these innocently cute and kitsch campaigns?

I dunno, but I really love the placement of the June Cleaver-type chickie in the middle of this little anti-conformity naughtiness. She just looks so sweetly excited by all this topless, flower-arranging craziness.

Maidenform: purveyors of non-hetero-normative-alternative-societal fantasies

Right on Maidenform! Who knew that a company so invested in controlling a woman’s body, in such a structured way, also wanted to helped her to escape the conformist constraints and live more freely.

Maidenform really is supportive! Either that or the entire campaign was created by a hormonal, 13 year old boy with a dirty mind…. just saying.

Cheers,

Maggie