If you're feeling grateful for stretchy waistbands after the holidays, you have Dr. Joseph Shivers (1920-2014) to thank. Shivers began working for DuPont in 1946 as a researcher assigned to improving polymers.
He was soon tasked with a new project; DuPont's market research on what women consumers wanted from textile fabrics had spurred research into finding new, more comfortable materials to replace rubber for women's girdles and other foundation garments. The project initially stalled and was shelved in 1950, but found new life a few years later during an experiment into modifying Dacron, a polyester fabric invented in 1951.
The project was restarted, and the new material was completed in 1959 and released under the name Fibre K before being rebranded as Lycra, followed by Spandex.
DuPont also launched a massive advertising campaign to promote the new textile fabric featuring Audrey Hepburn and other celebrities. This photograph, taken in April 1968, was part of the company's ongoing efforts to further popularize Lycra and its other synthetic fibers. It is part of a series of images meant to promote women's "form persuasive garments" made of a blend of Lycra and Nylon; this image shows a DuPont researcher using a contour meter to measure the shape and fit of the garment.
The photograph is part of Hagley Library's collection of DuPont Company Textile Fibers Product Information photographs (Accession 1984.259). The Product Information section was added to DuPont's Public Relations Department in 1952. Its main purpose was to create news releases accompanied by photographs like this one that would be run editorially by trade journals and newspapers to create inexpensive publicity and indirect advertising.
To view this series of photographs and others like it online in our Digital Archive now, just click here.