Vintage Underwear Ads from Anywhere

In the early '60s, Esquire magazine had ads for what, in later years TV talk show host Dick Cavett called "funny underwear." The most iconic, at least to this writer, was the young man in the Parr of Arizona ad. Further research revealed that this Tony Dow-type all-American-boy model appeared in March 1963 on the cover of Bob Mizener's first issue of Young Adonis magazine. That magazine is being sold as a collectors item in various websites.

His name is listed inside as Mike Patterson.
 

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In the early '60s, Esquire magazine had ads for what, in later years TV talk show host Dick Cavett called "funny underwear." The most iconic, at least to this writer, was the young man in the Parr of Arizona ad. Further research revealed that this Tony Dow-type all-American-boy model appeared in March 1963 on the cover of Bob Mizener's first issue of Young Adonis magazine. That magazine is being sold as a collectors item in various websites.

His name is listed inside as Mike Patterson.
Of course, these are swimsuits, not underwear, but...
 
eBay showed two supposedly-different brands of briefs, side by side, in identical packaging. I thought it was funny, so I took a screencap.

Each time I stumbled across another brand with the same package design, I pasted it in with the others until I'd found these eight. They all pretend to be different brands, but surely they must be the same manufacturer, don't you think?

Top row: The Hunter, FM, Manhattan, Super Boy
Bottom row: King, Pegaso, Hibaly, Rocky
3 in a bag on eBay.png


I wonder if it's a company that makes them for different clients? Or do they just invent lots of brand names to trick wholesalers into buying more?

There were even more brands like O'Rite and Always Wear but I couldn't fit them in that picture!
 
eBay showed two supposedly-different brands of briefs, side by side, in identical packaging. I thought it was funny, so I took a screencap.

Each time I stumbled across another brand with the same package design, I pasted it in with the others until I'd found these eight. They all pretend to be different brands, but surely they must be the same manufacturer, don't you think?

Top row: The Hunter, FM, Manhattan, Super Boy
Bottom row: King, Pegaso, Hibaly, Rocky
View attachment 114906681

I wonder if it's a company that makes them for different clients? Or do they just invent lots of brand names to trick wholesalers into buying more?

There were even more brands like O'Rite and Always Wear but I couldn't fit them in that picture!
I still see these regularly in Southern California. They are typically sold in indoor swap meets here frequented by Hispanic and Asian vendors. My guess is that there isn't really so much a "brand" per se, but a manufacturer mass producing the underwear and then packaging them under different names. It's especially noticeable if you look up the low rise briefs/bikini briefs made by these manufacturers. Kind of interesting seeing them branded as "vintage" on sites like Ebay when you can easily find them through many sellers. They just haven't updated the packaging/pictures of the models since the 80s/90s, so they have that old-fashioned look.
 
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I see lots of these as well. The Hunter seems to be the most common one, but there are also some others like Power Club, Ultra Dynamic, and King.
 

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