New York Times By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH
Published: September 28, 2005

"MAIDENFORM ladies are dreaming again.

Many of those too young to remember probably know about the ad campaign that Maidenform ran from the end of World War II up through the mid-1960's. It was the one with gorgeous ladies, their bottoms modestly clad but their tops ensconced only in their bras, dreaming they "went shopping" - or rode fire trucks, or crossed the Nile on Cleopatra's barge - "in their Maidenform bras."

It was shockingly risqué for the time - in fact, Mad Magazine spoofed the campaign in 1962, with "I dreamed I was arrested for indecent exposure in my Maidenform bra." But, it sure sold a lot of undergarments.

Well, the dream around Maidenform's Bayonne, N.J., headquarters is that women will happily pay $32 - a relatively high price for Maidenform - for the "Dream Bra" the company has introduced. The company insists it is a technological wonder - fuzzy lining on the cups, flexible underwires, cloth-encased elastic, softer hooks and straps, all kinds of things aimed at comfort and fit. And it insists its research shows that high on the list of women's dreams is an ample supply of comfortable bras that really fit.

But you won't pick any of that up from the three-part billboard that since Sept. 21 has towered over the southwest corner of 35th Street and Seventh Avenue in Manhattan - right across the street from Macy's, one of Maidenform's major channels. It sports a beautiful young woman, shown from the waist up, wearing nothing but a bra. The ad copy is equally spare: "Introducing the dream bra."

read the full story here http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/business/media/28adco.html