Original/context of this design? (silhouette of 2 young ppl sitting back to back)

[Mops]

There is one graphical design that I have seen reasonably often these last few decades, on T-shirts, as a decal, even on boats’s spinnakers, etc.

As the design is virtually unchanged (only in one instance have I noticed a variation) but never attributed I wonder if there is one iconic photograph or other artwork that these are reproductions of.

The design is:
Two people (look like youngish females), in silhouette, sitting back to back (i.e. using each other as a backrest), backs slightly curved, knees half drawn up.

The whole thing is right/left-symmetrical, looks graceful and in a way I cannot define like something from the 1970s or possibly 1960s.

One variant that I have seen only twice or so is that one of the two is a young male rather than a female.

Can someone identify the well-known original if there is one? Is there a context/connotation?

[Larry_Mudd]

That’s the logo for Kappa sportswear. They make a lot of (British) football gear and sponsor way too many sports teams.

[don_t_ask]

That is funny. I would have bet my life that the logo belonged to a truck manufacturer. I always associate it with mud flaps.

[Larry_Mudd]

Those classy chrome mud guard ladies don’t usually have the symmetry thing going on, (except when you consider the other mud guard) and they keep one leg straight..

I just noticed that the pictures on Kappa’s front page rotate, so the logo may not appear there very prominently. Here’s a tuque with the logo on it, for comparison.

[Mops]

Yes, that Kappa logo is the design that I meant. Judging from the other places where I saw it some others may have copied it. Isn’t it curious that they don’t seem to mark the logo with a TM sign? I for one wasn’t aware that it is a company’s logo.

[Larry_Mudd]

@tschild

Isn’t it curious that they don’t seem to mark the logo with a TM sign?

Maybe, but it it would be difficult to do without breaking the symmetry, and so long as they actually have registered the mark…

Anyway, it turns out that the logo is based on a photograph:

[In 1969] the students’ movement had introduced the concept of casual wear, and MCT management decided to start up production of outerwear, based on the success of the firm’s best-selling brand [of underwear]. Robe di Kappa was born.

Our renowned Omini logo also dates back to 1969 when, during a photo session for the Beatrix bathing suits (another MCT brand) catalogue, photographers realized they had come up with more than just a pretty picture. It was a shot of a young man and woman, both naked and sitting back to back, their outlines traced by back lighting.

The shot was not used in the catalogue.

Instead, it became the new Robe di Kappa logo. – although the photo itself was never iconic:

I did not know that. Know I can point at laugh (more) at people wandering around in Kappa tracksuits. “Haw haw, you’re wearing a rejected underwear ad.”