Date: c. 1920s
Origin: USA/Canada
Brand: Treo
This early 1920s advertisement for Treo’s Girdle and Brassiere reads, “The Treo Girdle is made entirely of surgical elastic web. Combines style with grace with comfort. Gives freely to every movement of the body, yet firmly holds figure.” It also states that the brassiere “Is made of ‘Paraknit,’”a loosely woven, highly elastic material, invented by Treo Co, which was used “expressly for bust-reducing, bust-supporting brassieres. Gives natural and graceful contour. Flexible and extremely stylish.”
Advertisements for these products using variations of this imagery were published in mainstream American women’s magazines, such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Ladies’ Home Journal, beginning in 1920 and appearing to end in 1922. Beginning in approximately 1919, Treo’s products were available by brand name in the Sears Roebuck catalog.
The advertisment’s emphasis on “movement of the body” aligns with the new freedoms many women experienced in the 1920s, including participating in sporting activities, which required both undergarments, and outerwear that allowed for more mobility. However, a slim, narrow figure was still the female ideal, and brands created undergarments designed to create the illusion of a straight, column form. According to Uplift: The Bra in America by Jane Farrell-Beck and Colleen Gau, “Between 1918 and 1924, the favored body type went from flat to flatter… The boyish look began to pall by late 1924.”
The construction of the girdle, made of “surgical elastic web,” was patented by the company, and the ‘Paraknit’ used in the brassiere, is a trademarked, “light-weight, open-work, elastic material.” By 1920, Treo had perfected the use of this material, combining it with an inelastic lower band. The brassiere features a wedge of rigid material separating the shallow cups, intended to reduce the visible curves of the female form, flattening the body.
The advertisement copy refers to this rigid material both as “supporting and reducing,” and the “reinforced diaphragm.” This type of undergarment, often referred to as a “reducer,” was created to help women achieve the on-trend, boyish, columnar silhouette of 1920s Euro-American female fashion ideal. According to Beck and Gau, the brassiere was one of Treo’s top sellers, allowing the company to compete with larger manufacturers producing similar reducing garments.
The advertisement copy says that the product was offered in both “white and flesh.” In the 1920s, this would have meant that the product was offered in white, and a caucasian skin tone shade, a common though nonetheless exclusionary colour range. The product was made available to women in sizes 34-52, a common size range for ladies’ undergarments of the time.
The girdle and brassiere were both priced beginning at $2.00, the girdle going up to $15.00 USD, which translates to approximately $32.00 to $215.00 USD today. Other variations of this advertisement found in women’s magazines included a separate, lower price point for girdles and brassieres intended for “Misses,” presumably adolescent girls.
Treo was an American brand that was founded in 1905, closing their doors in 1966. They specialized in niche women’s undergarments aimed at achieving a narrow figure, based on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York. Other products sold by Treo Co. through the mid-twentieth century included push-up bras, panties, and suspender belts. A Canadian address is also listed on the advertisement as Eisman and Co. in Toronto, CA.
From the collection of The Underpinnings Museum.
Many thanks to Liv Elniski for the object description and research.
