"l Dreamed I Was a Tycoon in My . . ."

IDA ROSENTHAL

MANY a U.S. woman --and man--boggles at the flat-chested styles that occasionally spring from Paris couturiers, but no one resents them with a deeper passion than a spry little (4 ft. 10 in.) grandmother named Ida Rosenthal.

Mrs. Rosenthal, 74, is

the founder and chairman of Maidenform Inc., the chief U.S. brassiere manufacturer and the originator of the modern bra. "Nature has made woman with a bosom," says Mrs. Rosenthal, "so nature thought it was important. Who am I to argue with nature?"

By helping nature, Ida Rosenthal has probably had a greater impact on the U.S. female form than all the couturiers in Paris. On any day, she estimates, 20% of all U.S. women--or 13 million--are wearing one of her Maidenform bras; 30% of U.S. women own at least one Maidenform. In 115 countries, 20 different styles of Maidenform, dubbed with such fetching names as Arabesque, Sweet Music and Chansonette, shape the contours of debutantes and matrons alike. Maidenform has become a part of the language, thanks to ads featuring women who dreamed they did everything from shopping to being a toreador--while showing off in their Maidenform bras.

Last week Mrs. Rosenthal, who spends 50% of her time traveling to outposts of her Maidenformidable empire, was in Europe. After hurrying through Brussels, Zurich and Amsterdam, she settled in Paris' Ritz, gave a professional appraisal of her clients. "The U.S. woman's bosom is getting smaller," she sighed. "The French woman is sometimes underdeveloped, the Dutch woman is rather heavy, and the British woman needs a little help. Reality cannot always be beautiful."

Mrs. Rosenthal has her own version of aid to underdeveloped countries. Her fastest growing market is overseas, where traditionally braless European women are becoming more sophisticated, and women in many lands have newly emancipated themselves into Western dress. Maidenform is opening accounts even in the bare-breasted tropical islands, e.g., in Papua and Fernando Po. Next spring Mrs. Rosenthal plans to personally invade Russia, where she was born. "I'd like the Russian women to wear Maidenform bras," she says. "They'll look better, they'll feel better, and maybe we'll get along better."

SELLING nearly 10% of all U.S. bras, Maidenform last year took in $34 million, expects a 5% increase in sales this year. Most of it came from the world's best brassiere customer, the U.S. woman. Maidenform's average customer is 24-25 years old, wears size 34B, and frequently (one customer in eight) wants padding in her bra. She is also hard to please. "A woman," says Mrs. Rosenthal, "is a very funny creature. You have to sell her the right size and right type, but what she wants to hear about is fashion. Not only do you have to be a designer; you have to be a psychologist."

Mrs. Rosenthal also believes in engineering. She keeps twelve designers busy engineering her bras at her Bayonne, N.J. factory.

When 19-year-old Ida Rosenthal set up a dress business in New Jersey in 1906, less than a year after emigrating from Minsk, the brassiere had a very different function than it has now. After Society Girl Caresse Crosby designed a brassiere in 1913 (it took its name from the French word for a child's undershirt), it was worn as a sort of chest-height cummerbund to flatten and camouflage women for the boyish look. When Mrs. Rosenthal moved into New York and set up a dress shop with a woman partner in 1922, she noticed that the dresses she was selling often did not look well on women who bought them. With her partner she designed simple brassieres with form and uplift, gave them away with each dress.

The brassiere end of the business quickly eclipsed the dresses. Maidenform was founded in 1923 with Mrs. Rosenthal's husband William as a partner. It grew fast, especially in the 1930s, when fashions forsook the boyish look. Mr. Rosenthal designed the brassieres and Mrs. Rosenthal handled the sales and financing. Maidenform pioneered in mass production, time studies and special machinery to make brassieres. During World War II, recalls Mrs. Rosenthal, "we got priority because women workers who wore an uplift were less fatigued than others."

NOTHING gave Maidenform a better uplift than the launching of its famous "I dreamed" campaign in 1949. Dreamed up by a woman copywriter for a Manhattan ad firm (now Norman, Craig & Kummel), the ad drew little enthusiasm at first, even from Ida Rosenthal. It soon caught fire, despite protests that it was risque. "We love double meanings," says Beatrice Coleman, Mrs. Rosenthal's daughter and the firm's chief designer, "so long as the double meaning is decent." Maidenform now spends 10% of its sales on advertising, mostly on the "I dreamed" ads. "Let them go on dreaming," says Mrs. Rosenthal. "We have our eyes open."

Indeed she has. When Mrs. Rosenthal's husband died in 1958, she took over as chairman, moved from their 18-room Long Island mansion to a three-room apartment in Manhattan, where a chauffeur calls at 9 each morning to take her to Maidenform's headquarters in Manhattan's garter belt. She personally adds up the new orders each morning to "see if the salesmen are working or playing golf," travels around the U.S. to see how her bras are faring in stores. "Quality we give them," she says. "Delivery we give them. I add personality."

Next January Maidenform will put on sale a new line of women's swimsuits equipped with Maidenform bras. Mrs. Rosenthal also thinks that there is a market for sleeping brassieres, hopes to produce a looser Maidenform for the bedroom. The company is also studying synthetic fibers that may eventually replace rubber elastic. From the girl of twelve to the woman of 80, Ida Rosenthal (one of her own best customers) believes that nature can still stand a lot of improving.

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