Memorial Day is today, which is the unofficial start of summer and… bikini season. Dun, dun, dun… Advice for getting bikini ready? “If you want to know how to get a bikini body, put a bikini on your body.” So true.
I came across these sets of photos on the The Weather Channel. Fashion has changed, hasn’t it? Even though seaside activities are still de rigueur during summer, the things, thongs, and full bottoms we wear while hanging out on the sand are not the same. No it is not. Yet isn’t it interested that the garment that is most closely associated with beach didn’t exist before 1900?
Vacations to the shore started in the late 1800s when railroads made it easy for the bourgeoisie to travel to the beach. By 1900, resorts sprouted and shortly after, water activities such as swimming and diving became popular. To support these types of activities, functional swimwear that hugged a woman’s figure was created. Also contributing to the invention of the swimsuit was Annette Kellerman. In a really cool article, Christina Black writes about how “the Australian Mermaid,” who was a competitive swimmer, diver, model, actress, stuntwoman, and professional mermaid in vaudeville and movies, sewed stockings onto a man’s racing suit. One day, she showed up on a Boston beaching baring her legs, which shocked people and the authorities. She was arrested and in court, she explained that she “may as well be swimming in chains.”
As stretch fabrics and manufacturing products were created and improved over the decades, swimsuits became smaller and smaller. My dad emailed me about a family vacation to the keys this summer and in his email, he wrote, “summer is coming; bathing suit time!” I’m excited about the trip but also worried – when I looked at some of the options for bathing suits nowadays, I’m most afraid of my butt hanging out. Oh vey!
I’ll end with a reference to a great article about an almost 60-year old woman’s opinion on bathing suit shopping. Describing her body, Roz, the author of the article, writes ”So I’ve got great muscle tone … for a woman who is almost 60. And who once gave birth to a 9-pound baby. And who has had an endometrioma the size of a grapefruit surgically removed from her body through a tiny incision near her belly button. You get the picture. I look great. For my age.” When she went on a trip and forgot her bathing suit, Roz and her husband went to a local sporting goods store for a new suit. There was no place for her husband to sit so he went into the dressing room with her. I let Roz tell you the rest (excerpt is from the article)…
“Can Mark come in with me?” I asked a passing saleswoman.
“Why not?” she said.
Mark parked himself on the dressing room’s bench as I wiggled in and out of a half-dozen Speedos. Although well aware that the harsh florescent light highlighted every physical flaw and imperfection, I knew Mark wouldn’t see it like that.
Men’s minds just aren’t wired that way. There wasn’t a chance that he was thinking, “That underarm flab is such a shame.” Instead, he’d be thinking, “Yowza! She’s taking off her clothes! And she’s putting on Spandex!”
“This is great!” Mark enthused. He’d never been in a dressing room while his sweetie tried on swimwear. “You look terrific!” he said, with each new suit I tried on.
If my younger self could have glimpsed the image reflected in that dressing room mirror, and seen what her future self would look like, she would have thought, “Shoot me now!”