But the Bunny’s erotic allure was as much of a tease as the stuffing that so often filled out the D-cups of her costume. Since its debut, the Bunny suit-a strapless bodysuit paired with rabbit ears and a fluffy tail-has become a cartoonish cliché of female sexuality, serving as a visual punchline in Bridget Jones’s Diary, Legally Blonde, Mean Girls, The House Bunny, and a host of other rom-coms.

Much like the clubs themselves, the magazine whose name they shared, and the man who created all of it, the outfits worn by the Playboy Bunnies were a blend of provocative and old-fashioned. One of the most iconic symbols of the Playboy Club was its waitstaff: a throng of women known, and dressed, as Bunnies. The buffet offered crab legs and filet mignon, and entertainment was provided by the likes of Nat King Cole, Steve Martin, Aretha Franklin, Billy Crystal, and Sammy Davis, Jr.

Though only men could be members-or “keyholders,” in Playboy parlance-they could bring female guests. The Playboy Club was a supper club, not a sex club jackets and ties were required. Similarly, when he opened his first Playboy Club in Chicago in 1960, Hefner emphasized respectability above raunchiness-a preference widely noted by writers reflecting on his legacy following his death at age 91 last week. He once explained that he chose a rabbit as the magazine’s mascot “because of the humorous sexual connotation,” but dressed him in a tuxedo “to add the idea of sophistication.” The models may have been nude, but the articles were written by acclaimed authors like Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Kerouac, and Vladimir Nabokov and covered highbrow topics including “Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz,” to quote Hefner’s introductory editorial. From its first issue in 1953, Playboy’s publisher Hugh Hefner sought to distinguish it from the sleazy sex magazines stored under the newsstand counter and sold in brown paper bags.

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