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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst When the Girls Came Out to Play: The irB th of American Sportswear 1-1-2006 Part One: The nflueI nce of Fashion. Chapter 4, Bathing and Swimming: Seeking a "Sensible Costume" Patricia Campbell Warner Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/umpress_wtg Part of the Fashion Business Commons Warner, Patricia Campbell, "Part One: The nflueI nce of Fashion. Chapter 4, Bathing and Swimming: Seeking a "Sensible Costume"" (2006). When the Girls Came Out to Play: The Birth of American Sportswear. 6. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/umpress_wtg/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in When the Girls Came Out to Play: The irB th of American Sportswear by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CHAPTER FOUR BATHING AND Swimming Seeking a “Sensible Costume” THE OUTDOOR LAWN GAMES OF CROQUET AND TENNIS NUDGED WOMEN INTO a new awareness of the need for more suitable clothing for sport. In spite of this, sporting dress for both activities remained firmly within the boundaries of the conventional. Other kinds of leisure activity enjoyed at the same time, however, forced thinking—and clothing—in new directions. Even more influential in bringing about change was the popularity of swimming and bathing. And the clothing for bathing had much further to go. James Laver, the keen-eyed and witty observer of clothing and its role in society, once wrote that “the only sensible costume for bathing in is no costume at all.”1 However much one might agree with him, rigid standards of modesty and the mid- nineteenth-century introduction of mixed bathing got in the way. The trou- ble was that when the body got wet, no matter how voluminous the drapery around it, it had a tendency to reveal itself under the sodden and clinging lay- ers that were meant to hide it. Thus for decades the goal was to offer unfail- ing coverage, thereby retaining appropriate modesty while also allowing necessary freedom of movement. Clearly, this was not an easy assignment.2 The history of bathing and swimming dress reflects that uneasiness, that ambivalence. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, swimming had largely been the activity of men, while bathing—that is, dipping into the water, often in the name of healthful duty—was regarded as quite a different pastime, often a feminine one. The water cures of earlier decades 61 CHAPTER FOUR had generated spas, which very properly kept the sexes apart even as they probably increased sexual interest by the very act of doing so. (We have seen how gleefully both men and women came together to play croquet.) The spa’s water activities inevitably led women to seek the greater freedom of bathing in the ocean and lakes. Early on this too was controlled. Seaside resorts used red and white flags to carefully designate and limit the times when men and women could swim. Often each sex had its own separate section of the beach until, again inevitably, they recognized the pleasures of joining together in mixed bathing. People quickly realized that this activ- ity too—just like croquet—encouraged flirting and courting.3 Americans embraced this notion much earlier than their English counterparts. In an age of dubious acceptance of exercise in any form and rigorous adherence to role behavior, climate must have played a critical part. Relief from sum- mer heat is rarely a factor in England. In 1833 a British visitor to the United States commented on the mixed bathing he saw, but added that since the parties always went into the water fully dressed, he could see no great violation of modesty. In any event, “even though they were com- pletely clothed, few females dared to go into water where one had to be accompanied by a man.”4 In spite of these restrictions, by 1846 mixed bathing had become “the fashion all along the Atlantic coast.”5 Until that time, men frequently bathed or swam nude, while women cov- ered themselves in long, loose, and flowing dresses of a canvas-like material. Essentially heavy chemises or tent-like cloaks, when wet these ballooned out from the body, allowing freedom of movement for the arms and legs. Women entered the water from the privacy of small “bathing machines,” which were little changing huts on wheels that could be pulled down to the edge of the water. Often brawny female attendants were on hand to help them paddle away from the steps of the changing houses, supporting them as they went through the motions of “swimming” and keeping them safely away from prying eyes. Swimming per se came very slowly to women, pos- sibly because, until the second decade of the twentieth century, the clothing they had to wear would have pulled them to the bottom like a stone. Even after the reform in bathing suits, American women remained timid swim- mers. Nevertheless, as early as September 1873 Godey’s described a “swim- ming belt of bootstrapping ornamented with embroidery . used by children and grown-up people in learning to swim.”6 This sounds like some 62 “The worst of wearing one’s back hair down is that it makes the young men stare so!” Segregated bathing, complete with changing houses or “bathing machines” that were rolled to the edge of the water. Harper’s Weekly, September 18, 1858. Courtesy of Mount Holyoke College Special Collections and Archive. “Oh! Aunty dear, do come and duck under the wave. You’ve no idea how delicious it is!” Simple cov- ered dresses of the 1850s, cut off above the knee, worn with straight-legged but loose trousers, in the bloomer style. Harper’s Weekly, September 4, 1858. Courtesy of Mount Holyoke College Special Collections and Archive. CHAPTER FOUR sort of harness for the attendant to clutch, and it sounds heavy besides. But from this we may assume that at least a small number of women were actu- ally learning to swim rather than just paddling or playing in the water. Swimming pools were being built throughout the country during these years, and colleges, even women’s colleges, followed the trend. Goucher had one of the first, in 1888. By 1916, more than 32,000 women (out of a total U.S. population of 101,961,000, slightly fewer than half of whom were women) entered swimming programs offered by the YWCA. Clearly, the swimming population was not large; but it would seem that those who did swim were enthusiastic, because the following year the Women’s Swim- ming Association of New York was officially organized to promote national and international competition for women.7 In the next chapter I look more closely at this group and its success three years later at the 1920 Olympic Games. But first it is important to realize what went before, and how far those women had to come to achieve their international triumph. According to the argument I have presented so far, we should find that the clothing for water activities in these years was fashion-oriented because it was worn when men and women interacted together out-of-doors. Such simplicity when speaking of swimming and bathing is merely a fond hope. The reality is much more complicated. The requirements of clothing for going into the water are unlike any other, and called for a very different development from all the other sporting wear discussed in this book. Cer- tainly male influence played its part, pushing the early separation of bathing dress into a fashion-conscious mode while functional dress for swimming struggled for existence as late as the 1920s. The ambivalence I noted earlier is clear as we look at the clothes. Obviously, the clothing for bathing and swimming is unique in that its function is to protect the body while allowing movement in the water. When wet, it becomes heavy and therefore sharply counterproductive to the purpose for which it is designed. Even worse, wet fabric often becomes translucent or even transparent. It clings to the surface underneath and reveals the form supporting it. In an age of militant modesty, these charac- teristics could and did present embarrassing problems for bathers. The solution in the late 1850s was to cover the body in several layers of loosely fitting but sturdy clothing, modeled on the bloomer costume of the time. 64 BATHING AND SWIMMING This outfit became the prototype for all women’s bathing suits for the next half century.8 Briefly, it consisted of a baggy, blouse-topped dress, “short” for its time, cut to the mid-calf and worn with a belt to gather in the full- ness. With it, a pair of matching Turkish trousers was gathered at the ankle and finished with a ruffle. Often a short cape or “talma” was included to throw over the shoulders after emerging from the dip.9 The cape’s purpose was twofold: it would provide warmth if needed and, of equal importance, a modest covering should the “figure” suddenly be revealed too promi- nently. In other words, the outfit was cut similarly to the housedresses of the period, but modified with a shorter and narrower skirt to be worn over a pair of trousers rather than the customary petticoat. In this it was exactly like the reform bloomer or the exercise suit. Though modified over the next decades, it basically stayed within those boundaries. Even—or perhaps especially—fashion magazines had grave difficulties in finding complimentary things to say about such costumes.

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