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Camp-Berlei Foundation Garments - The basis of all frocking
Title:
Camp-Berlei Foundation Garments - The basis of all frocking
NFSA ID
11567
Year
1927
In the closing minutes of this advertisement, mannequins and live models appear in Berlei’s figure-hugging foundation garments, the ‘basis for all frocking’. After an elaborate pyramid display of mannequins wearing the latest fashions, a single mannequin is shown wearing a ‘flapper’ style dress. This dissolves into the mannequin wearing only the foundation garment she has on beneath. Another dissolve goes back to the pyramid of models, all now wearing only their foundation garments which transitions to a final shot of a single live model wearing only Berlei.
These sequences are complemented with intertitles.
Notes by Poppy de Souza.
The importance of having good undergarments to show off these fashions, and hide figure faults, is shown through several dissolves between foundation garments and outerwear worn by the mannequins and live models.
The elaborate tableau of shop mannequins displayed in this advertisement is similar to the female pyramids of Busby Berkley’s Hollywood musicals.
Camp-Berlei Foundation Garments: Physiological Support synopsis
This tinted cinema advertisement for Camp-Berlei foundation garments includes mannequins and live models wearing a range of dresses, coats and hats by various fashion designers. They are all underpinned by the ‘basis for all frocking’ – Berlei foundation garments.
Camp-Berlei Foundation Garments: Physiological Support curator's notes
According to Berlei’s own advertising slogan of the past – their products are ‘the foundation upon which fashion rests’. In this advertisement we see both the fashions and the foundations in a tinted advertisement running over six minutes in length.
Berlei foundation garments have a history dating back to 1912 when Fred Burley founded Unique Corsets Limited with his brother Arthur. Berlei grew from a small store in Market Street Sydney where it offered ‘made to order’ corsets for discerning clientele. In 1919, Berlei Limited was born and since then the company expanded its product line into the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Today Berlei remains one of the most recognisable names in the manufacture and design of lingerie and underwear in Australia.
At the end of this advertisement, a title card explains that the fashions worn in the ad, along with the Berlei foundation garments modelled, could be viewed in 1927 on ‘living models’ by anyone interested at Berlei House which was then located in Regent Street, Sydney.
Notes by Poppy de Souza.
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.