Whilst you are putting your bathing suit on and heading for the water, the grass or the sand, have you ever given a thought to those people who came before you? Whilst you are sitting there in your swimming trunks or bikini, spare a thought for those who have worn a swimsuit before you through the ages. The history of the swimsuit and the history of women’s swimwear in particular is fascinating
We are so fortunate nowadays in the Developed world to be free of the shackles of the disapproval of society concerning beachwear and swimming costumes, because it still goes on in the Muslim and Asian world. They see our easy approach to near nudity as disgraceful, but so did our fore-fathers and particularly our fore-mothers.
But there was a weird duality in their reprobation. I have seen photos of female bathers in the latest fashion designs taken around about 1900 where nipples are plainly visible, but the legs were covered in stockings. These are clearly family photos and not pornography, which was rife then as well.
The history of bathing suits through the ages (in the West) for both men and women has seen a reduction in the amount of clothing society required to see for a person to remain decent. This varied from country to country and from religion to religion, but with the exception of the Islamic faith, the trend has been the same – towards skimpiness.
The less the better.
For example, in 1905 a lady’s bathing costume was actually a short dress made up of ten yards of material, but by 1945 that yardage had shrunk to one yard. Nowadays some women’s swimwear is made from a couple of square feet.
The same is true of men’s swimwear fashion. A hundred years ago, the normal swimwear fashion for men dictated that they wore leotards in the water, whereas stylish swimwear in the late 1930’s was trunks.
In the Seventies, they wore skimpy speedos and now we are back to trunks, although some beaches permit men to wear thongs like ladies can. Such are the vagaries of contemporary beachwear and swimwear style as dictated by politics and fashion.
In 1917, women wore a knitted sweater, a skirt, bloomers, black stockings and even shoes on the water’s edge. Men did not have to wear stockings or shoes, but their leotard usually came down to their knees.
In the following years, fashion saw hemlines on women and men rising, but bathing costumes were still down-beat, unsexy dark colours. The emphasis was not to look sexy, although numerous photos taken at that time reveal that both sexes were going through a sexual revolution. They had never seen so much of each other outside the bedroom.
This was the time when lots of our grandparents were born so it is the history of their parents’ sexual liberation. In the Developed world, we can scarcely begin to imagine what it must have been like in those days ‘when a glimpse of stocking was something shocking’ and men ‘would rather hang around Piccadilly Underground, looking at the ankles of the fine-born ladies’.
These days, you can find beaches all over Europe where (semi) nudity is permissible, and increasingly so in America and Asia. The only bastions of modesty are the Muslim countries of northern Africa and Eastern Asia, but after recent events such as the Arab Awakening, how long is that liable to last?
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a number of topics, but is now concerned with strapless swimming costumes. If you want to know more, please visit our website at Swimwear For Big Busts.