It was Robert Elberson ’s line of work to take store of a womanhood ’s legs , and what he saw did n’t please him . It was 1968 , and the recently - appointed president of Hanes Hosiery Mill Co.observeda grow identification number of pantyhose client were grabbingcheap stockingsat grocery store stores for the sake of convenience . While a fair sex might grass for food for thought multiple times a hebdomad , she would in all likelihood only head to a section memory once every calendar month or two . Rather than wait , she would buy unmentionable when it was most convenient .
The subject matter was clear : Hanes needed to get its merchandise into supermarkets . They would also have to stand out from the 600 - plus other manufacturer who were produce pantyhose . Elberson needed a revolutionary deviation from the unremarkable cardboard packages . What his advertising business firm get along up with ended up revolutionizing the undergarment manufacture , and made the grocery store gangway much competition - proof . It was called L’eggs , and it became a part of retail art .
Ladies ' undergarments experienced several ultra paradigm shifts in the 20th century . Man - made nylon stockings , introducedat the 1939 New York World ’s Fair , bring home the bacon an option to silk , which was pleasing to the centre and soft to the touch but tended to run and snag . When nylon was co - opted for the warfare effort , woman drew “ seams ” on their leg to replicate the look and then practically rioted when stockings were once again made available .
In 1959 , single - piece pantyhose made the proletariat of garters largely a thing of the past . Cheap to make and pass around , hundreds of companies glutted the market with product . But unlike other major consumer categories , there was no Coke or Pepsi — or even an RC Cola — of the pantyhose world ; consumer had no brand loyalty . Pantyhose were pantyhose .
What womendidprefer was buying them out of doors of section stores . This became even more apparent as the mini and other slender mode offerings made hem lines undesirable , and sales of hosiery climbed . Women , Elberson noted , embraced the convenience of cast aside a pair of pantyhose in their cart along with staff of life and milk , even if the quality was poor . Hanes had been sticking with section stores . It was time for a change .
In 1968 , Elberson and Hanes provision manager ( and next executive vice president ) David E. Harroldinstructedtheir employee to begin work on designing a product that would beguile a woman ’s attention in the supermarket aisles . Because they feared department storage vendee would nauseate , they codenamed the project “ V-1 ” and relegated it to thebasementof the Hanes plant in Weeks , North Carolina . They draft graphic designer Roger Ferriter , of the ad firm Dancer - Fitzgerald - Sample , to revitalise the clichéd packaging plebeian at the time : hose extend over a piece of composition board and stick in into a credit card sleeve .
Ferriter ’s thought came to him the morning he was scheduled to make his intro to Hanes . Crumpling the pantyhose in his hand , he realized it could suit inside an shell — and egg , in Ferriter ’s mind , were representative of something fresh , refreshful , and instinctive . He give it the name “ L’eggs ” and succeed over the Hanes executives in an instant .
Another designer , Fred Howard , developedthe arrant accompaniment to the egg - form package — a revolving display that put up the L’eggs shell and nothing else , so stores would be unable to satiate competing pantyhose in the rack . Hanes also rid of wholesalers ; they sold stores the product on committal and hired sale reps to maintain the show .
The one - size - fits - all L’eggs ball made their debut in 1971 . Hanes knew women wanted pantyhose in grocery stores . But how would they respond to an egg ?
Within months , L’eggs was the top - selling brand in the hosiery market . consumer were trance by the package , the fact that the product mostly concur up over time , and the melodic theme that they no longer had to feel obligated to run to a habiliment or apparel memory in orderliness to supersede a shoot down twain of stockings . Hanes recorded$120 millionin L’eggs sales in 1972 alone . By 1976 , they had taken 27 percent of the full grocery stock pantyhose business , near doubly that of their nearest competitor .
Like the Quaker Oats can and real bollock cartons , the L’eggs containers proved to be an enduring presence in the home . Some peopleused themas holiday decorations , party favor , or planters ; Hanes had enormous selling winner pluck them in different colour for holiday promotions . They even released a ledger offering tons of cunning ideas . It sold 23,000 copy in its first month of release .
Despite the fact that L’eggs look to be a utilitarian product leverage , the growing eco - cognizance of consumers in the 1980s start out to reject the theme that Hanes ’s plastic design was good for the environment . From the perspective of Hanes , it was also a merchant vessels hassle : the “ dead space ” in the egg not taken up by the disheveled pantyhose added to delivery costs . In 1992 , the companyunveileda new , recyclable cardboard package with an elliptic top resembling an testis .
While the original L’eggs package re-emerge sporadically for anniversaries and promotional duties , the design has largely been rendered disused by waste business . As a monument to retail conception , however , it was once stocked in some of the most valuable shelf space in the human beings : theMuseum of Modern Art .
