Playboy starts selling Bunny costumes… almost.

I wrote a piece last year about the limited offer of good replica bunny costumes and raised the question whether or not Playboy was missing out on a huge opportunity… if they themselves sold good quality replicas, girls vying to be bunnies would no doubt line up to buy them.

See the older post here.

Well, now in order to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Playboy club and the bunnies Playboy has come out with a new costume for sale.

This time we get a corset and shorts that are to resemble the famous bodice with all the necessary accessories.
The best parts about this costume is supposed to be the ears and the tail, they are reportedly “closer” to the original design than anything that has been allowed to reach the average bunny lover before.

The “Bunnies” at some of the smaller worldwide 50th anniversary parties apparently wore this costume (or something much like it), while many big city events sported playmates wearing the real thing.

Lillie's Bordello in Ireland

Juliet Supper Club New York City

For some reason the costume is only available for order through the UK lingerie chain Ann Summers.

Further reading here.

~ Bunny Victoria

Happy Birthday to the Playboy Bunny!

The very first Playboy Club opened it’s doors on February 29th 1960, making this pop-culture icon now 50 years old!

Still as elegant and beautiful as when she first arrived on the scene 50 years ago, the Playboy Bunny proves that some things, truly never go out of style!

Playboy will be celebrating this amazing event all around the world and if you are interested in joining the fun check out: http://www.playboyclub50.com/

If you are on Facebook and love the bunnies join the Vintage playboy bunnies group here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=98064648361&ref=ts

And the Playboy Bunny costume group here:  http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=89360241629&ref=ts

And if that isn’t enough you can always watch some Bunny videos on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/user/BunnyVictoriaVideos and here:  http://www.youtube.com/user/ExPlayboyBunnies

Hope you’ll all have a great Bunny Birthday!

~ Bunny Victoria

The Christmas Bunny costume

 

Since Christmas is just around the corner this is the perfect time to feature the Christmas bunny costumes!

The christmas Bunny costumes were very special.
When Playboy started adding more versatility to their costume line-up the Christmas bunny costumes were the first specialized costumes to be made, first being used in the late 60′s.
Only a few bunnies were assigned a christmas costume in each club and usually they went to high-ranking bunnies since the Christmas bunnies would always get the most attention… and rightly so!

The christmas costumes came in red and green satin and velvet, all had a fur trim and bells on the ears and a fur trim on the bodice, some had fr pom-poms on the side laces.

 

Some deviations were made to the classic Christmas costumes by bunnies of the year…

Lake Geneva Bunny of the year

… and in the Bahamas club with blue costumes and different fur trims.

 

Famous bunnies in Christmas costumes include Carol Vitale (also featured in the pineapple print bunny costume)

Merry Christmas!

~ Bunny Victoria

 

A Bunny montage

 

Check out this great bunny video… 

It has various footage of real bunnies in action and also some faux bunnies from the movie “A bunny girls tale” … can you spot which are real and which are fake?

~ Bunny Victoria

The Pineapple print Bunny costume

The pineapple print was one of the first print introduced in the early 1970′s when Playboy started adding them to their lineup of bunny costumes.

The Pineapple print was rather popular and came in two versions, Red and Black. 

  

Famous bunnies in Pineapple print costumes include Carol Vitale who appeared on the cover of Playboy in august  1972, won Miami Plaza bunny of the year also in 1972 and was a Playmate of the month in July of 1974… she even kept her Pineapple print ears when leaving Playboy.

Playmate Bunny Carol Vitale

A black version of the print is also worn by one of the bunnies seen working at the London Playboy club in the move “The games” from 1970

Regardless of its original popularity in the clubs the Pineapple print rarely shows up today and is now a valuable collectors print.

 

~ Bunny Victoria

Is Playboy missing an opportunity?

This is a bunny costume sold by Playboy and is modeled by 2007 PMOY Sara Jean Underwood.

~

With the bunny costume being the icon that it is many have tried to get their hands on the real thing.
But since that will cost thousands of dollars for a really good copy (that really shouldn’t be worn due to its collectible nature) most end up looking for a good-looking replica and the truth is… there aren’t any.

Most of the stuff that comes up when searching for a “Playboy bunny costume” is cheap and tacky, which works on its own but when compared to the original thing comes nowhere close.
Your best bet, if you want to be a Playboy bunny for Halloween, is to make your own costume.

Even the costume Playboy is currently selling can be found elsewhere online, cheaper…

3wishes.com is an alternate source for "Playboy's" costume

 … It is surprising since Playboy has their own line of costumes.

So the question remains.

Since the demand for bunny costumes is so high, why doesn’t Playboy use it to their advantage?

It is surely understandable that they don’t want to sell exact replicas of their original design but something that is based on it , looks like it and has the Playboy name on it would surely sell in truckloads…

 

No?

 

 ~ Bunny Victoria

Happy Halloween! – The Halloween themed bunny costume

Happy Halloween everyone!

This is the perfect opportunity to start featuring individual bunny costumes… starting with the Halloween print!

After prints were introduced to the bunny costume lineup in the early 70′s the all over look of the bunnies became more versatile.
Prints were more exclusive than the solid colored costumes as each club only fitted each print to a select few and no costume ever looked exactly alike.

The Halloween print bares resemblance to the holiday in its colors and patterns. Consisting of orange, black, yellow, red and brown, this was one of the two costume prints that had polka-dotted fabric.

In America the Halloween print was a rare print but more noticable in the clubs around Halloween, in the UK however the print was somewhat rare in regular circulation.

In America this print became more noticable around Halloween

Today this is a very hard costume to find due to its original rarity.

 

~Bunny Victoria

Making your own bunny costume – Preview

Since it’s Halloween week I’ll be putting together a post on how to put together a pretty good-looking bunny costume.
But in the meantime check out this cool YouTube video of how to make one on a budget! 

 

(It’s not my video, I just saw it and thought it was a neat idea)

~Bunny Victoria

The Bunny Costume

Within a year of the first bunny costume going into use at the clubs a number of changes were made.

One of  the most noticable changes came with the name tag, pinned to the right hip (left if the bunny was left-handed). This placement put the name tag at eye-level with the customers while serving them so they  could easily identify each bunny, soon the sides of the legs were heightened to lengthen the leg.

A rosette nametag was added to the right hip

It was then when Playboy hired Chicago seamstress Renée Blot to prefect the design.
She got to work eliminating the need for a corset underneath the satin and together with Chicago corset maker Kabo came up with a boned one-piece costume.

By 1964 the design of the bodice was complete and has remained the same ever since.
The original satin had been replaced, bones had been added to the inside for support and the cups were now made from the same foam car seats are made out of, the costume was also a washable and highly durable one piece shell that came in only two cup sizes, 34 and 36D (which required most bunnies to stuff their bust with anything they could find, from plastic bags to bunny tails.)
The costume was now available in 12 colors with most popular being black, red peacock blue and emerald green.

With the costume the over sized ears were also modified to better frame a bunnies face and not be too overbearing on her head, the original fish net and later mesh dancer tights were replaced by Danskin sheer black and nude tights (bunnies had to wear one of each) and the tail was made larger to compliment a bunnies natural assets.

Mid transformation - note the large ears

Through all the changes in the costume itself though, it still remained a regulation to wear 3″ died to match satin pumps, which the bunnies had to supply themselves by getting a swatch of their costume from the seamstress.

The most important change however came in adding the finishing touched to the look.
Even though Hef had always like the outfit he felt something was missing, the bunny costumes could easily be mistaken by bathing suits with ears and a tail pinned to it.
He went back to look at the Playboy logo, the original inspiration for the costume, and noticed that the bunny was wearing a bow tie.
Hef mentioned this to Renée and she came up with cuffs and a collar with a clip on bow tie to wear with the costume… this turned out to be the perfect addition in completing the bunny transformation.

Hugh Hefner inspects the new bunny costume designs at his mansion

The bunny costume truly is the work of great engineering and intelligence and for the almost 50 years that the bunny costume has been around it has been surrounded with mystique and certainly has become an icon in it’s own right.

The bunny costume as we still know it today

~Bunny Victoria

The original Bunny costume

The very first Playboy costumes were very different from what we know today.

The original inspiration came from the costumes worn by waitresses at a rival Chicago club “The Gaslight Club”.
As with the Gaslight outfits Hefner wanted his bunny outfits to be both modest and revealing at the same time, a perfect presentation of the “look but don’t touch” feel of the club.

He therefor knew that a legend was born when Ilsa Taurins, whose mother had designed the original concept, stepped into the half finished Playboy Club in Chicago, wearing the original satin bodice with ears and a fluffy tail.
Quickly, the right type of fabric was found and some boning added in the form of a corset… the costume was ready to be put into use.

The original costume was constructed from heavy rayon-satin that was stretched over a merry widow corset similar to this one…

The original costumes were made from merry widow corsets

So when a bunny was hired she had to go get herself a corset that fit and then take it to the Playboy club seamstress.
The seamstress would then fit the satin over the corset and make ears… who not always matched the color of the costume.
Then the bunnies would wear small yarn tails, black fish net stockings and high heels to complete the look.

This original design was used for a very shot time and only in the Playboy Club in Chicago, being updated within the first year from the opening of the club.

Chicago Playboy club, 1960 - note the mismatched ears

It did it’s job and within a month 14.000 keyholders had visited the club to view the fabulous Playboy bunnies.

~Bunny Victoria