To become a Bunny, women are first carefully chosen and selected from auditions. There are different types of Bunnies, including the Door Bunny, Cigarette Bunny, Floor Bunny, Pool Bunny, Fine Dining Bunny, Playmate Bunny, and the Jet Bunnies (specially selected Bunnies trained as flight attendants they served on the Playboy "Big Bunny" Jet). The Playboy Bunnies are waitresses who serve drinks at Playboy Clubs.
This section needs additional citations for verification. The bunny costume became a powerful symbol of the Playboy Clubs, and it was also the first commercial uniform to be registered by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (U.S. This is also contradicted by recounts in much earlier publications such as "Big Bunny" by Joe Goldberg (1967) and "The Bunny Years" by Kathryn Leigh Scott (1998). Since 2013, a story has circulated attributing the original design of the Playboy bunny costume to New York fashion designer Zelda Wynn Valdes, however, there is no evidence to support this. Bunnies wore two pair of these sheer stockings, a black pair worn on top of a taupe toned pair. The standard stockings also evolved from fishnet material to a special sheer pantyhose style supplied by Danskin. Several years later, Playboy engaged a prominent manufacturer of lingerie and swimwear to create a modified bunny costume that used washable stretch knit fabrics, allowing for costumes in vibrant prints as well as solid colors. The original costumes were made in 12 colours of rayon satin. Later, in 1962, French fashion designer Renee Blot was retained to refine the design, and her revisions included making the ears smaller, adding a collar with bow tie & cuffs with rabbit-head cufflinks, and a satin rosette with the bunny's name, worn on the hip. įor mass production, the costume was manufactured for the Playboy Clubs by the Chicago-based Kabo Corset Company, and was based upon a "merry widow" style of corset within their line. His suggested modifications were in an attempt to make the costumes more visually appealing, and the tightly laced corsets added to the feminine appeal, cinching in the Bunny's waist by at least two inches.
The initial costume looked similar to a one piece swimsuit, with a white yarn puff tail and a headband with bunny ears, and Hefner suggested cutting the leg higher on the hip to expose more of the leg, and sharpening the v-shape of the costume. The outfits were not received well by the co-founders initially but Hefner advised that it could work once changes were made. The prototype was reviewed at a meeting attended by Playboy Club co-founders Hugh Hefner, Victor Lownes and Arnold Morton, as well as frequent Playboy illustrator LeRoy Neiman. Taurins had suggested a costume modeled after the Playboy Magazine trademark, either a rabbit or bunny, and she had her seamstress mother make a costume prototype. At the time, Taurins was dating one of the Playboy Club co-founders, Victor Lownes III. The original Playboy Bunny costume was designed by the mother of Ilse Taurins, who was a Latvian émigrée. Playboy Bunny waitresses at a Playboy Club, Brazil, 2009