""Plans for a Playboy Club were begun in 1959. But the beautiful Bunny was not yet born. Seeking to maximize on the image Playboy was most famous for, it's Playmates, initial talk centred on dressing the Playboy Club's hostesses in revealing negligees and calling them 'Playmates'. But during a night-out, Victor Lownes' then girlfriend, Ilse Taurins, suggested to Hefner the idea of dressing the hostesses in the image of the tuxedoed Playboy Rabbit character. This Raffles Rabbit had featured on Playboy covers and in advertising spreads. Hefner answered that he had already considered the idea of Playboy Bunnies, but had disregarded it as 'too masculine.' Ilse said her mother, a seamstress could run up a prototype female rabbit costume for Hefner to inspect. A few days later Ilse stood before Hefner, Lownes and a few other key executives in the prototype Bunny costume her mother had made. The effect was astounding. Hefner in a flash knew that he had his hostess uniform at last (he was particularly smitten by the tail). And so was when the first Playboy Club opened it was staffed by the most famous icons of the Sexual Revolution and a legend was born - The Playboy Bunny.""