Date: 1949
Origin: USA
Brand: Stayform
This 1949 demonstration card from a Stayform Foundations sales kit doesn’t showcase a particular product, but claims how Stayform products generally promote good posture. A woman is illustrated standing in profile, with her skeleton showing as if in an X-ray. At the ankle, hip, waist, base of the torso, scapula, base of the neck, and ear, are pivot dots, with a vertical red line through the center of the woman. The torso and pelvis of the woman are on separate pieces of paper, so they can rotate in and out of alignment to demonstrate correct and incorrect posture. When the red line aligns with the pivot points, the figure has the correct posture, resulting in “figure beauty, proper functioning of internal organs and muscular system – general well-being.”
If the lumbar region is pushed out of place, the literature points out the “protruding abdomen, flat bust contour and rounded shoulders.” The card notes as “fact” that “binding or constriction will not ‘hold in’ the protruding abdomen or lift the bust.” Stayform foundations correct this by pulling “downwards and under” on the back of the figure, rather than pressure inwards on the stomach, restoring proper alignment of the body. As the tagline reads, “CORRECT POSTURE ENHANCES FIGURE BEAUTY.” There is information on how to contact the Stayform offices in Chicago below.
Rose Hanskat began her career selling women’s foundation garments from house to house in Chicago, Illinois. On April 27th, 1926, she registered “Rose Hanskat’s Stayform” as a trademark with the United States Patent Office, and on June 22nd, 1927, Stayform Co. was chartered as a corporation. In April of 1930, a man named Glenn R. Fouche was employed as a sales manager of Stayform Co., though he resigned two years later due to “differences of opinion over management policies” with Hanskat. However, in 1933 Fouche became the President of Stayform at Hanskat’s request. He held this position until 1955 or 1956, and an obituary for Fouche published in 1958 by the New York Herald Tribune erroneously credited him with founding the Stayform company in 1930.
Many thanks to Katherine Shark for the object description and research, and Summer Anne Lee for researching Stayform’s company history.
From the collection of The Underpinnings Museum
