Lily of France: Sexy and avant-garde!

The package also reveals the brand or manufacturer, Lily of France. This company has a history of nearly a hundred years. It opened its first store in New York in 1915. Designer John Kloss helped Lily of France become a household name in the 1970s when he designed the “glossie” bra. This design stemmed from the “ban the bra” movement in America during that time. Kloss made this bra from a stretchy material so that it appeared not to exist.

Lily of France had popularized sexy underwear early on. Consider an advertisement by Lily of France in 1957, stressing “three yours”: your waist, your hips, your thighs. In this advertisement, the brand focused on enhancing sexiness, and making the body appear more slim and charming. Lily of France was at the same time a taboo-breaking company and a pioneer of underwear fashion. It was in this spirit that it decided to cooperate with Rudi Gernreich in the 1970s.