This site started off back in 2000 as a place for wallpaper images of beautiful women. But there was some debate at the very start as to what our angle would be. Just European women? Just actresses? The front-runner at that time was: a tribute site to Wonderbra models. Well, five years later, and here we are: an article on the wonderbra years.

The Wonderbra was introduced by lingerie manufacturer Gossard in 1996 and was a world-wide sensation. The concept was simple enough: a bra that pushed up the wearer's breasts, and enhanced the bustline and clevage. An exercise in making the most of what you've got! If ever there was a textbook example of how advertising work, then this is it. Who thought that women needed underwear that pushed their breasts up and together? Not women. Until the adverts showed up, and caused a media frenzy. A cheeky black & white pic of a model in just her underwear (with her newly enhanced clevage) and the caption "Hello Boys" became the image that defined the wonderbra years. It was followed by more in the same vein, with captions such as "Plan to run into your ex", "Newton was wrong", "Gravity schmavity", "Mind altering and legal too" and so on. While the adverts were clearly designed to catch the eye of the men, they had the desired effect on the women: the Wonderbra sold millions. And millions.

What was the psycology behind this masterstroke? Did women want to be like the model? Did they fear being less attractive than the model if they didn't get a wonderbra too? Did they (as many would have us believe) feel that they were being forced into living up to an unrealistic model of female beauty? In our experience, people who feel they are being forced to do something don't normally part with billions of euros for merchandise they secretly don't like. Could it be as simple as the fact that, after years of skinny models being paraded through fashion, women suddenly decided they wanted to show off their curves? Even if they didn't have those exact curves?

Well, we're getting off the point: let's have a look at the models themselves.

	Eva Herzigova Czech model Eva was not only our introduction to the wonderbra, she was probably our first exposure to the wonders that had remained hidden behind the iron curtain for so long. During those cold war years, people always used to joke about how ugly Polish women (or women from some other Soviet ruled place) were. Then the wall came down, and Gorbachev thawed the cold war out. And look was had been hiding away! Eva featured in the initial run of black & white adverts described above, and then in a few colour ones. Eventually, her reign came to an end, but not before she had become a household name, and married a multi-millionaire musician... as was the accepted pattern for the time. Since then, Eva had changed from the curvy minx with the awesome smile that we initially met, to a skinny girl with a worryingly emaciated, hint-of-a-crack-whore look about her. We can only hope that everything is okay, and work out. We want to see the little cuttie pictured on the left again!
	Brenda Schad [ bio ] Gossard decided to go stateside for the next installment of the great wonderbra adventure. Brenda was unknown on the world stage, but her series of adverts changed all that. The cheeky black & white campaign was finished, and this time we got Brenda in a series of revealing photos of dress/undress, usually against a yellow background. Brenda went on to become a firm favourite of ours here at Euroeros, and our original background image for the pages used to feature that very same wonderbra advert. She's been lying low of late, but we hope she hasn't given up on modelling just because she married a multi-millionaire.
	Madison Michele Hmmm... now, Madison is a bit of a puzzle. Gossard undertook a very public search for the new "face" of wonderbra after Brenda retired from the campaign. Madison was chosen from tens of thousands of hopefuls, and then... nothing. I'm not even sure she featured in a single advert! And then she dropped from public sight altogether. She returned in the past few years, as a television presenter, and this may shed some light on the goings on: she may have decided that a tv career was more important, and that being a bra model might damage her chances. If that's the case, she seriously misread the prevailing mood. The late 1990s were a time when there was no longer such a thing for a young women as having "a bit of history" that might be unearthed and damage your career. Jenny McCarthy, Pamela Anderson and Carmen Electra could pose nude for Playboy and consider it just a stepping stone to fame. So did Madison lose out on 8 years or so of her career for nothing? If you have any information, please let us know.
	Adriana Sklenarikova [ bio ] After the abortive reign of Madison, Gossard returned to Eastern Europe for the next face, and other body parts, of the wonderbra. They struck 18-carat, solid gold this time out with Adriana. She had very photogenic breasts, for sure - as required for the job, you'd think. But she also had long, shapely legs, a fine figure and a stunningly beautiful face. To top it all off, she actually had a personality that could handle the business of being one of the most famous models in the world. Interviews with models need no longer be the tortuous exercises they had sometimes been. Adriana was able to hold forth in an interesting and copy-worthy fashion. The wonderbra campaign returned to its roots with more of the "cheeky slogan" style adverts, this time in colour. The slogans were even more daring, poking fun at the fact that everyone was looking at Adriana's breasts: "interesting article?", "have a heart, look at the other ads", "I can't cook - who cares" and to celebrate the approach of the infamous y2k bug "not everything is going to collapse next millennium". In 1998 Adriana married a multi-millionaire soccer player, but it's nice to see that this hasn't cramped her style: she did a series of topless shots in recent years, and we can report that those wonderful breasts are perfectly capable of standing up without the support of gossard's engineering!
	Emma Griffiths After Adriana retired from the wonderbra campaign, things dried up a little. Maybe it was just a fad whose time had passed, but the next models never inspired the kind of frenzy that the first few did. After a while, Gossard seemed to have a new "face of wonderbra" every few months. These models would do a few interviews, and appear in lads mags such as Maxim, but the days of ubiquity were gone. One of our favourites of recent times is Emma Griffiths, but after a few catalogue appearances she quickly moved on to MTV as a presenter.

And such is the nub of the problem: modelling is now just a stepping stone to being a tv presenter, singer or actress. Girls are happy to parade around in their underwear if it'll get them to where they want to go. In one sense, more power to them. But in another sense, it has become very cynical. Eva Herzigova modelled the wonderbra because it was her job. Current wonderbra models do it because they want to be a tv presenter/singer/actress, and an easy way to get started (and bypass all that pesky learning a craft/paying of dues) is to take their clothes off.

Put it this way: how many women trained in the media, and worked their way through jobs as assistants and runners on crappy shows, only to find that they couldn't get a job on MTV because Emma Griffiths got there first. And she got there because she had her picture taken in her underwear. Yes, yes... "beautiful people have it easier" is hardly news, nor is this situation. Newsreaders and weather reporters aren't journalists and meterologists any more - they're basically models. And every model is also an actress, and also a singer. Maybe that's why we look back fondly on the golden age of the wonderbra - it was a time before reality tv, and "multi-threat" celebs. The cute women in the wonderbra ad was just that - she didn't want to sell you a CD, or want you to take her seriously as an actress. She modelled lingerie, and was good at it. Their time has passed. Sunrise, sunset...

While we're on the subject of celebrity models, we need your help with someone from other end of the spectrum: the model on the left is showing off a Splendor Bra, and we've no idea who she is. If you can help us, please drop us a line with her name.

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