As late as the early 1920s, the fashion pages of Harper’s Bazar and Vogue were concentrated on the bathing suits, aiming at readers involved in the social life of the seaside resorts—lounging about the beach with occasional splashing in the water. The growing numbers of women who wanted swimming suits, however, had only to turn to the advertising sections of these same magazines to find that even in 1915 such shops as Bonwit Teller & Co. and B. Altman & Co. were advertising knitted swimming suits.
In June 1916, Delineator solved the dilemma of bathing versus swimming costume in an intriguing article written to sell a pattern for a bathing costume. In description and presentation of illustrations, the article emphasized a costume with “all the features essential to a practical swimming-suit.”[57] The blouse and bloomers were attached at the waist in this garment which had a square neckline and no skirt or sleeves. Made up in wool jersey, this would have been a practical swimming costume for the period. But this was not the only style available from this one pattern. The following variations were included: a sailor collar on a “V” neckline; a high-standing collar, long sleeves; and a detachable skirt with the fullness either pleated or gathered into a waistband, to be worn long to the knees or just short enough to show several inches of the bloomer. In this way Delineator succeeded in satisfying nearly every degree of conservatism—an amazing accomplishment.
The spring edition of Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalog for 1916 offered a one-piece, or “California-style,” knitted worsted bathing suit with the underpiece sewn to a skirt. This costume was less elaborate than the other dresses shown, although it was still knee length. The 1918 spring catalog showed two one-piece knitted outfits suitable for swimming in striking contrast to the surplice bathing dresses that were also offered. By 1920 all of the bathing costumes illustrated in the Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalog were of the more abbreviated and functional type.
In 1918 Annette Kellerman recommended that serious swimmers wear close-fitting swimming tights or the two-piece suits commonly worn by men. Being quick to admit that this costume would not be tolerated at all beaches, she told dedicated swimmers to
... get one-piece tights anyway and wear over the tights the lightest garment you can get. It should be a loose sleeveless garment hung from the shoulders. Never have a tight waist band. It is a hindrance. Also on beaches where stockings are enforced your one-piece undergarment should have feet, so that the separate stocking and its attendant garter is abolished.[58]
Knitted swimming suits found in advertisements of the period were either one-piece or two-piece; the trunks were attached or separate, but they always extended a few inches below the brief skirt. Although this costume could be considered sleeveless, in some examples the suit was built up under the arm—a concession to the demands of modesty ([fig. 16]). The scooped or “V” neckline with no collar was relatively high; in order to put on or remove the suit it was unbuttoned at one shoulder.
Figure 16.—One-piece swimming suit of knitted wool, c. 1918. (Smithsonian photo P-65413.)
It was this type of swimming costume which evolved into the garment that dominated the fashion pages of the mid-1920s.