"Once More Unto the Beach, Dear Friends" (Rockmans, Summer 1947)

 If in 1929 some people were scandalised by backless bathers, by 1947 some female beachgoers had progressed to two-piece ensembles.  As yet they only revealed a small sliver of midriff, and a matching skirt is provided if the wearer has to preserve her modesty off the beach.

THESE GARMENTS ARE ALL "FRANCIS BOURKE" PRINTS

R1140.  The latest in cotton bathers.  Laced at both sides and gathered in front.  Pants lined with heavy linen.  One-piece back.  In assorted florals and nautical prints.

R1141.  A snappy cotton pinafore with a wide band, fitted waistline, tied at back or buttoned.  In assorted florals.

R1143.  A youthful cotton skirt with wide-fitted waistband.  Cut on cross and very full.  6 Buttons down back.  Assorted floral designs.

"Francis Bourke" was probably Frances Burke, a modernist fabric designer who went into business in Melbourne in 1942.  Among other commissions she designed the fabrics for the Australian embassy in Washington.

"Bright, Good-Fitting Bathers" (Myer, Spring & Xmas, 1929

Though modest by today's standards, these colourful bathing suits from the Myer catalogue are streamlined and practical.  However, since the lady on the left is wearing a suit made of cashmere, I suspect she wasn't likely to dip it in the sea.

0991—Fine Cashmere.  All-wool BATHING SUIT with plain top and fancy striped skirt.  In assorted colours... Fancy Rubber BATHING CAP.

0992—Gilr's United Style.  All-wool BATHING GOWN: in black, navy and many bright colours.... CAP in smart designs and colours, to tone with gown... COOLIE COATS, in crepe, in floral designs, in bright tonings for maids and children...

Styles of '65: "Fun-In-the-Sun-Clothes" (Flair, January 1965)

1965, and fashion faced in two directions.

On the one hand, Paris was producing some very avant-garde stuff: Saint Laurent designed his "Mondrian" dress, Courreges his "space age" suits and Paco Rabanne his first plastic dress.  Across the Channel in London (yet to be dubbed Swinging London, though it was already swinging) Mary Quant was well established, Biba had opened her first boutique, and John Bates was designing clothes for Diana Rigg in The Avengers.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, a more conservative aesthetic prevailed.  Catalogues were filled with pictures of models sporting Chanel-style suits and bouffant dresses, cocktail dresses and beehive hairstyles.  These fashions don't often make the history books, but the majority of women wore them.  Ideas from the cutting edge of fashion (miniskirts!) gradually filtered into the mainstream.

Confusing?  Don't worry.  Contemporaries found it all equally confusing! 

What is happening to Fashion? 

Well may you ask... because lots of exciting things are happening right now, especially in Paris!  Take the trouser-suit for instance... whether you're for or against it, it's going to cause a strong ripple in the local fashion scene this winter... and so will bonnets, crochet sweaters, feather boas, black velvet, jungle-print stockings and nanny-type alligator shoes!  

COVER: The fresh look of mid-summer fashion is eloquently stated by an overblouse of printed Arnel sharkskin, teamed with plain canary bermudas of the same fabric...

Perfect clothes to wear on a beach... as shown here.  Or at a picnic, a barbeque or any other casual outdoor entertainment.

Flair, January 1964

 Sixty years ago, Flair featured this cheerful "playsuit" for wear on the beach.

Our Cover: Looking sunwards, a playsuit of spanking white Arnel sharkskin, amusingly stencilled  with a giant-sized sunflower [you can reverse the jacket back-to-front if you wish . . . makes no difference]; made by Aywan, the set is priced at about £6:15:0...

"Sharkskin", thank goodness, is not made from the real skins of real sharks.  It is a twill-weave fabric with "a distinctive sheen" and can be made from many kinds of fibres.  In this case "Arnel" was the trademarked name of a brand of triacetate fibre.

"Lastex Swimsuit" (Distinction, Spring-Summer 1957-8)

On the cover of Distinction we have a:

 Strapless lastex swimsuit, shirring at top and shirred pants.

As you can see, it's a fairly structured garment.  Though we aren't given any details, it's clear that a lot of internal scaffolding was needed to hold the swimsuit up and mould the wearer's figure into shape.  Lastex had been introduced in the mid-1930s, but was only just becoming popular for swimwear.  Cotton was another popular material for swimsuits in the 1950s, and nylon was starting to make a splash (first used for swimwear in 1956).

Distinction was a bit of an oddity of a magazine.  Published in Sydney between 1948 and 1972, it set out to describe what was in fashion with few words and lots of pictures.  It carried no feature articles and no advertisements, but sold a few dressmaking patterns through its pages.  Its pictures were largely uncredited (which makes me wonder whether some of them were pirated from other magazines).  While it's a great reference for mid-century fashions, I'm left wondering who was its intended readership.  Perhaps it was aimed at people in the rag trade looking for designs to copy?

Anyway, here is some of the magazine's advice to readers in the Australian Spring and Summer of 1957-58:

Waistlines have moved again; this time to a position 2 or 3 inches above the natural waist, demanding attention by high placed belts, wide cummerbunds, draping and short jackets...

Shorter sleeves will play an important role for warm weather practicality.  Capelet and balloon sleeves vie with the dolman, set-in and unmounted styles for popularity.

Hemlines for street dresses remain approximately the same position, perhaps an inch longer, but certainly no more.

More detail is given to skirts, they look freer and easier, but it really isn't so—they are still basically slim.  This illusion is created with pegged skirts being curved at the hipline but tapered below...

The mood for absolute femininity is expressed in fashion by the use of soft clinging fabrics...

Fun In The Sun (Vogue Patterns, January 1948)

Recently I got hold of a Vogue Patterns counter catalogue from 1948.  Needless to say I'll be posting a lot of scans from it in the future!  For today I thought I'd start with some pictures of bathing suits and beachwear from the catalogue's "Work and Play" section. 

5766 One-piece Bathing Suit

A one-piece bathing suit with interest added by shirring.  The pattern was designed to be made up in either rayon or wool jersey.  By the 1940s there were swimsuits made of new, water repellant fabrics—such as lastex—but they don't appear to have been available for home dressmakers.

What We Wore In '74: Beachwear (David Jones, Spring and Summer 1974)

 This year I'm going to do a series of posts looking back fifty years to the styles of 1974, an era which seems at once strangely modern and a very long time ago.    And since it's now the Australian summer, what better place to start than looking at what we wore at the beach?

F: You'll have it all wrapped up in this nifty beach wrap.  Drop shoulder style makes for comfort and of course it's styled in Bri-Nylon—what else?

G: Itsy bitsy, teeny weeny bikini.  A little nothing to turn heads on the beach this season.  Elasticised under the bust and back strap.  Fibre filled bra to give shape while still looking natural.  Bri-Nylon.

A: Handy chenille cover-up...

B: Comfortable hip-length cover-up...

C: Cool bias stripes on jersey...

D: Snappy shift to match bikini...

E: Ada jersey bikini.  Fibre filled bra, 3" side brief.  Fully lined...

F: Long-singlet shift in carefree cotton/nylon towelling.  Crisp stripes on white with flattering neckline and silver ring trim.

In spite of the number of "cover-ups" for sale, 1974 was the heyday of the deep, dark, fashionable tan.

Bikinis are front and centre in this catalogue, though a few one-piece swimsuits lurk around the edges.  You'll notice that there are no "string bikinis" for sale.  They had just been introduced in 1974 and were presumably still so new that David Jones didn't have time to include them in their catalogue.  However, The Australian Women's Weekly had things covered (or not so covered), with a pattern for a string bikini included in it's October 30 issue.

"But Yes, You Have Time..." (Elle, July 23, 1951)

 This one is for my readers who are enjoying a northern summer—a simple pattern for a terry towelling beach coverup.  The instructions are minimal, alas, and the translation my own (with help from the Dictionary and Google!)

Cut, Stitch, Love the Terry

Terry cloth is everywhere, in all bright and cheerful tones ... it washes easily, it does not wrinkle, it has, in short, all the virtues especially the essential: it is furiously fashionable.

The terry tunic.  Two rectangles assembled by the side and shoulder seams, short and straight sleeves, a horizontal neckline bordered by a lapel, two patch pockets, an elastic drawstring at the waist, English seams (so that the fabric does not crumple)...All this is as easy as pie and will make you an ideal bathrobe to wear over a bikini. 
(1 m. 60 by 90 cm)

Front

Back

100 Years Ago (The Delineator, June 1922)

Though I posted something very similar before, I can't let my series exploring the fashions of 100 years ago go by without at least one post depicting the beach fashions of 1922.

 The Delineator describes the tops of these two-piece bathing costumes as "blouses" and the bottoms as "knickers".  Suggested materials included wool jersey, gingham, taffeta, crȇpe de Chine, satin and foulard.  In other words, these garments don't seem intended to be worn by serious swimmers (especially when you consider that the figure second from the left is wearing ruffles, and the model wearing gingham has pockets in her costume!)   Swimwear would steadily become more streamlined and spare through the 1920s and into the 1930s, but would remain impractical by modern standards until the invention of waterproof and elasticised synthetic materials.

"Les Costumes de Bain" in Le Miroir des Modes, July 1922

 Le Miroir des Modes was a French magazine promoting Butterick patterns.  Most of the illustrations were lifted straight out of Butterick's American publications, The Delineator and Butterick Quarterly.

 

 

The 1920s was the decade when women were supposed to have shaken off the shackles of Victorian prudery, but the models in this illustration look almost as covered-up as their nineteenth century predecessors.  Bathing costumes here consist of thigh-length tunics (some daringly bare-armed!) and trunks hovering just above or a little below the knee.  Most of the models are wearing some kind of bathing cap or hat, all wear some kind of footwear, and all but one sport stockings (mostly rolled down below the knees).

These outfits look more decorative than practical.  One could imagine the wearers taking a quick dip in the sea—if they didn't mind wetting their dainty ruffles and ribbons.  Anything more athletic would be out, and I suspect the main function of these costumes was to look pretty on the beach!

'Going Swimming' (Stitchcraft, June 1949)

As I said in my previous post, "knit-your-own" swimsuits were always a possibility for the beach-goers of the 1930s and 1940s.  Here is a pattern from Stitchcraft which promises to not stretch out of shape.

I've scanned the whole pattern in 300 dpi, so it should be possible for keen knitters out there to print it off.  Since there are many more types of yarn available to knitters in 2020 than in 1949, it would be theoretically possible for someone to experiment by making this costume in synthetic fibres.  On the other hand, one could make it up in wool for that full 1940s experience.

In either case, happy knitting to anybody who would like to try it!

National Bellas Hess Midsummer Sale Catalog (1936)

These swimsuits look almost modern, and their wearers almost liberated—but oh dear, look at the materials they're made off!  All these costumes are made of knitted wool which was heavy, sagged when wet and took ages to dry.

Help was at hand, though, because the 1930s was the decade that saw the introduction of "lastex".  Lastex was an elastic fibre that was made with a core of rubber surrounded by wool, silk, cotton or rayon.  It was perfect for girdles and bras—and of course, swimsuits.  It made possible the sleek "glamour" swimming costumes worn by the pinups of the forties and fifties.

Meanwhile, "all wool" outfits like these continued to be made and worn into the early fifties.  Lastex costumes were not cheap, war interfered with production, and if all else failed it was still possible for a hopeful beach-goer to find a pattern and knit her own swimsuit to order.

Beachwear from "Wakes" Catalogue, Spring-Summer 1947

Apart from bushfires, there's nothing as typical of an Australian summer as a day at the beach.  After the Second World War ended people had time to play again—and "Wakes" marketed this boldly printed outfit to women wanting to enjoy sun, surf and sand.

HOLIDAY WEEKEND WARDROBE IN ONE.  In an exclusive-to-Wakes border printed, tub-fast cotton linene.  The long wear will amaze you as much as the tiny price. Big border shells, shrink to periwinkle size at waist.  Button-on easy-to-iron coat dress as smart as its classic simplicity.  Sun-suit features faultless shorts, knot-in-front bare midriff blousette.

 Though the war was over, rationing still continued (and would continue until 1948) in Australia.  This outfit cost a total of 23 ration coupons—as well as 49 shillings and sixpence in money.

Vintage Swimwear Advertisements (1960s)

The heatwave continues!  It's far too hot to compose a blog post, so I think I'll go for a dip instead.  Hmmm.... what shall I wear?  Maybe these vintage ads will give me some ideas...

From Germany in 1963 we have this advertisement for Benger Ribana.  Well I've got to admit these swimsuits look cute!  However I'm not sure I'd want to sit on a metal beach-buggy on a scorching hot day...

How about these one-pieces from Jantzen (1963)?  Once again, the word that springs to mind is "cute".

Maglia in 1964 offers a choice of a bikini and a one-piece—both in Bri-Nylon!

Also in Bri-Nylon, this costume from 1969, with an up-to-the-minute daisy pattern!

Finally, two girls splashing happily in the sea in costumes made of diolen (1969).  A quick google tells me that diolen has some of the properties of kelvar, but I don't think these swimsuits are bulletproof!

And... oh look!  I think I just wrote a blog entry after all!

To the Beach in Butterick Patterns (1930s)

It's January, and here in Australia it's unrelentingly hot.  What better way, then, of kicking off the New Year than by going to the beach.  Luckily for me Butterick produced some patterns for the most up-to-the-minute beachwear—1930s style!

Butterick Fashion News, July 1930 (front cover)

To begin at the beginning of the decade: the July 1930 issue of Butterick Fashion News showed a pattern for a "costume consisting of shirt and shorts for beach wear, tennis, camping or exercise; or shirt and long trousers for beach wear, boating or yachting."  In the 1930s the beach was one of the few public places where women could wear trousers.

Butterick Fashion News, July 1930 (back cover)

On the back of the same issue are two swimsuits.  Pattern no. 3187 (at left) is for a "one-piece swimming suit and separate shorts".  Pattern 6822 (at right) is for a bathing suit "having a slip-over blouse and trunks or shorts."

 

Butterick Fashion Magazine, Summer 1935

"If it's swimming you go in for, get a new bathing suit.  A faded last year's suit will be a blot on a landscape where all the color is clear and bright.  The new suits are made of every sort of material."

Suggestions included rubber (!), a knitted swimsuit and, of course, one sewn from a Butterick pattern.

And from Butterick Fashion Magazine of summer 1935 we have these three patterns: from left to right a button back swimming suit, an outfit of slacks, halter top and "bell-hop" jacket (suitable for sailing) and a halter top and shorts.

  

Butterick Fashion Magazine, Spring 1939

 From Butterick Fashion Magazine from Spring 1939 we have:  

"How to be the only pebble on the beach—a  becoming coat with a corselet belt and huge cape collar... The bra top on the middle figure has little sleeves and ties in front... The shorts have patch pockets and cuffs.