Having exhausted the novelty effects of knitted swim suits, women in the late 1930s began to respond eagerly to the wide range of decorative possibilities found in woven fabrics. Cotton and the relatively new man-made fibers such as Celanese acetate and Dupont rayon were used in fabrics such as ginghams, chambrays, piques, and featherweight elastic satins. To the pleasure of the fashion editors, who claimed to be anxious for some relief from the nudity of the maillot, suits of woven fabrics were made with flared skirts. These had knitted linings of cotton, acetate, or wool which satisfied any taste as to warmth or coolness on the beach. The belief was prevalent that a wool swimming suit was needed for warmth. In the 1940s the two-piece, bare-midriff suit with tight shorts or flared skirt was a popular and logical development from the earlier suits with cut-out sections around the midriff. The more extreme French bikini, however, was not adopted by American women when it was first introduced in the 1940s.
By the end of the forties the one-piece swimming suit staged a comeback with a slight variation: the new suits were structurally sculptured to mold, control, and stay put while swimming or sunning. They were the product of ingenious engineering, inside and out. The use of shirring and skillful cutting and handling of fabric focused attention on the bust line, while the frequent use of Lastex tended to streamline the hips like a girdle. Inside, the careful use of wire and plastic boning permitted many of these suits to assume a shape of their own and even to be worn without straps.
A short-lived revival of the covered-up look appeared in the fashion pages in 1954 but, unlike the suits with covered arms and neck of the previous century, these suits drew attention to the parts of the body that were covered. The fate of this unsuccessful novelty is a good illustration of the fact that, ultimately, the buyer has the final word in the volatile field of feminine fashion. The swim suit manufacturers apparently misinterpreted the American woman’s readiness to discard the more revealing two-piece suit in favor of an altered form of the maillot. Always ready with novelties to make last year’s suit obsolete, the manufacturers tried to encourage women into a more extreme covered-up look. Despite the power of national advertising women were unwilling to go back in time. The female beach-goer and sun-worshiper opposed a suit that might interfere with the tanning process.
By 1960, the production of swim suits had become a big business with mass distribution and mass markets. Expanded world-wide transportation facilities and increased leisure and affluence in the United States created a demand for midwinter vacation clothing for use in warmer climates, and the manufacturing of swim suits became a year-round undertaking, producing 14,728 million knitted and woven suits in women’s, misses, and junior sizes in 1960.[68]
Conclusions
The earliest bathing dress for women in the United States may have been an old smock or shift, followed by a bathing gown based on the shift or chemise. Although women’s bathing and swimming costume achieved an identity of its own during the 19th century, the evolution of this garb followed certain innovations in women’s underclothing, namely, drawers in the first half of the 19th century, the “combination” of the late 1870s, and the brassiere and panties of the 1930s. The greatest number of minor style changes, however, were direct reflections of fashions in street dress. The rising hemline and, at times, the discarding of a skirt during periods when women wore long dresses for other activities can be attributed to changes caused by the functional requirements of bathing and swimming; the shortening of sleeves and trousers in the last quarter of the 19th century were also functional improvements. The benefits of the shorter trousers, however, were minimized when modesty required women to cover their exposed legs with stockings.
Swimming suits have been considered a 20th century innovation; in fact one corporation is under the impression that a member of their staff was responsible for the first use of the term “swimming suit” early in the century. The findings presented in this paper show that some women were wearing “swimming suits” that were distinctly different from bathing dresses as early as the 1870s and that both co-existed for some 50 years. Bathing dresses disappeared in the 1920s with the widespread acceptance of its functional counterpart; “bathing suit” no longer referred to a special type of costume but became interchangeable with the term “swimming suit.”
The insistent trend toward more functional costume reached its ultimate conclusion with the refinements of the knitted swimming suit in the 1930s. Subsequent changes have not improved upon the functional design of this classic suit. In many instances these variations have been merely to satisfy the feminine desire for distinctive apparel and the industry’s need for perishable fashions. Female competitive swimmers have continued to wear the simple knitted suit—now of nylon rather than wool.
The changes since the 1930s have shown a trend toward diminution in the coverage of the swimming suit. One cannot be certain what this means for the future, but it is unlikely that either the swim suit industry or standards of modesty of the near future will permit a total elimination of swimming costume. We can be assured, however, that so long as women swim, they will not repeat history by swathing themselves with yards of fabric.