Could be a while, I don’t see her very often.
I am reasonably sure that she picked it up at school. See-through blouses were just coming into use, I’d say around 1963.
I think see-through blouses were non-existant in 1963, in the US. Maybe by 1968 or so.
You were probably trailing behind us then. Still, I’ll ask her, she has a better memory than me.
None of them are retirement age, but a couple might be eligible for membership in AARP.
Speculation:
The pose linked in the OP may have been accomplished dynamically: Have the model bounce a bit, and catch those puppies at or near apogee with a fast strobe.
I have seen a few like the OP’s and it was not necessary to resort to artificial methods of suspension for them, they just stayed like that. I doubt that they still do of course.
Haven’t encountered wife yet samclem but a bit of recalculation based on her birthday gives me approximately 1965/6.
Will likely bump into her tomorrow though. Eldest daughter’s birthday.
I’ve seen people attribute their trying the pencil test to Judy Blume’s 1970 book Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
I can’t find any such use by doing a search in Google Books. What Margaret does is chant, “we must, we must, we must increase our busts.” I thought that was an old positive thinking line from much earlier but Blume’s book gets in the way of my searching for the original.
The book is at the right time for bralessness to start being a concern for American women. The 60s didn’t hit mainstream America until the 1970s, after all. And with the ten zillion references to Margaret in search, she was the major influence on girls thereafter. Maybe the pencil test arose at about the same time and the two conflated in people’s memories.
I seem to recall hearing about the pencil test from around that period, myself, but it’s all misty today. (And not from drugs, either. Unless we’re talking all the prescription meds I take today.)
Fashions come and go. I don’t know about the 1963, but I remember quite clearly that see-through blouses were quite fashionable among teenagers (and maybe older women) in 1952.
Does someone have a link to these “see through blouses”? Was a camisole worn under them, or what? I can’t picture what y’all are talking about.
We did have translucent nylon/poly button up blouses in the late 80’s to mid '90s, but they didn’t reveal a damn thing, as they were worn over a sleeveless T of the same color.
We know what a see-through blouse looks like. :smack:
The question was about supposed see-through blouses worn in the 1950s, which that picture had nothing to do with.
The ones I remember the girls wearing in 1952 (it’s a long story about why I can be so precise about the date) were styled like a man’s dress shirt and made of a very think white material, probably cotton, so shear that the girl’s bra underneath the blouse was clearly visible. It as considered in poor taste to stare.
Are you sure about your date of 1952? What country would it have been in? Certainly not the US.
Edit: Sorry, didn’t see your reply above.
My newspaper story was from late December, 1970. It said
Does this mean that the French actually invented the pencil test? No, but I can find no other source.
I asked my wife when she first heard of the pencil test and she immediately remembered that it was in high school. This would place it in the 1960s. She indicated that it was in common knowledge even at the time. No confirmation of the date is possible, of course.
I’m sure that various fashions in 40s movies showed blouses whose purpose was to reveal the - usually dark colored - bra underneath. These blouses were heavier and not as sheer as the one in the picture Myglaren posted.
Since they were designed to be worn over a bra, the pencil test wouldn’t have any meaning for their wearers.
I also just watched the restored version of the 1927 movie Metropolis. It’s set in the future (2026: coming up soon) so it’s not a good indicator of then current styling, although the designer were manifestly playing off the surrounding “decadence” of Wiemar Germany at the time. In any case, a number of the young women were wearing see-through garments and their braless breasts were clearly visible underneath.
They were distinctly perky. Perky, perky, perky. Perky. Must pair the perkies. 
Myglaren, I can guarantee you that was NOT the sort of “see through” blouse my mother was wearing out of the house in the sixties. Nope, no way!
That’s why I’m curious. Myglaren’s picture is of a synthetic fiber garment, probably nylon, and it’s exactly what I and my girlfriends wore - with sleeveless tees underneath - in the 80’s and 90’s. It was not thought of as a “retro” style at all.
Shirt like my old sheer blouses. A few of today’s sheer blouses. Nobody but a couture runway model would wear those without a layer underneath.
I’m just having trouble picturing women running around out of the house in blouses were you can see their nipples, even in today’s loose and immoral times. A trashy wench or two, sure, but as a widespread fad, this one escaped my notice, and doesn’t seem to be in my fashion history books, either, so I’m really curious.
Next thing you’ll be telling me is that they had SEX in those days, too! 
My wife, then girlfriend, had one like it in the mid sixties and there were one or two other girls that did too.
She didn’t wear it to school and her parents would likely have strung her up had they been aware she had it. It was considered rather scandalous which was her main reason for having it. That and the pert boobs, very similar to those in the picture.
Still it was reserved for somewhat special occasions.
I would hesitate to describe her as a trashy wench but she was certainly of a provocative nature.
Certainly there was sex in those days but it was limited to a select few. Unlike these days when they let anyone take part.
samclem. As far as she recalls the pencil test was picked up at school, as you surmised around '65/66, from the other giggly girls there and she isn’t aware of it’s origin prior to that. Wasn’t part of the curriculum anyway.
I suspect more than a couple could sweep the floor with their nipples now!
Back to the OP (and this is a thread I don’t want to open at work) I read a lot of Playboys in the ‘60s (when my father and my friends’ fathers weren’t home) and collected a few. The Playmates in the linked pictures were exceptional, they kind of stood out. <leer>. Most of them had much smaller breasts, and definitely perky. So the filtering wasn’t by Hef, it was by whoever selected those pictures.
I’d say it’s a safe bet numerous photographers were submitting their shots of numerous models and it wouldn’t surprise me if Hef had final approval, right up until he began easing out of the day-to-day operations of the magazine, likely passing them off to his daughter Christie (who I think is kinda hot, actually).