Unit LMTFD4014B Element 4.1 the function of clothing is related to fashion design. By looking at the history of swimwear we can see the relation between historical events, inventions and moral behaviour that prompts fashion designers to respond. The History of the swimsuit in the 20th Century

1920’s Athletic Tank suit

Fashion history was shocked into the 20th century with some of the newer all revealing figure hugging swimsuits that revealed the body limbs more clearly than ever before.

Liberated from long skirts, young women of the twenties wore a figure hugging wool jersey sleeveless tank suit.

The swimming suit was ideal for the androgynous athletic figure that fashion suited best in the 20s. It looked very similar to male swimming costumes of an earlier era.

The swimsuit legs stopped at an unflattering point mid thigh and beneath the swimsuit legs were built-in modesty shorts.

Swimsuits were often in dramatic abstract patterns or stripes and those

with poorer figures covered them up with wraps.

Whilst the new bathing cap of the 1920s, ideally suited to bobbed hair was not unlike the cloche hat of the same era.

1930's Women's Bathing Suits

Feminine cotton printed bathing suits often with little over skirts to hide the thighs gradually replaced the ugly 20's fashion. The 20's suit, which sometimes sported cutout sections in the midriff panel, disappeared as it evolved into a two-piece garment. By this era most of us would recognize the late 1930's swimsuits as one that bears some relationship to swimwear of today.

Hollywood stars also added glamour to the swimsuit so that bathers needed to consider having one in the latest fashion. Esther Williams and Dorothy Lamour along with films featuring synchronized aqua swimming whipped up interest in figure hugging costumes with higher cut legs and which revealed every body contour.

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1940-60 Corset Like Swimsuits

In the 1940s, corset manufacturers saw a gap in the market. Corsetry was losing ground, but the new more revealing swimsuits really needed experts to design garments that hid faults in a woman's shape. They achieved this by adding stretch tummy control panels to hold in the stomach. Manufacturers also used bra cups and boning to give bust support. Costume could then be worn either strapless or with small straps that buttoned onto the inside.

Women still continued to wear all in one swimsuits in the 1950s. They also took great care to cover up their hairstyles with a swimming cap or bathing cap, usually holding their head well out of the water when swimming. The swimming caps shown left were decorated with plastic

petals or leaves to make them appear prettier than a bald fitting bathing cap. A wide range of fabrics including lined cotton, stretch Lastex and elastic ruched waffle nylon was popular for a while. Zips were still used in the centre back of swimsuits retaining the corset like appearance until the early 1960s.

The swimsuits of the 50s and early 60s were cut straight across the top of the leg in the form of a modesty apron that hid the separate matching fabric crutch. Subtle changes occurred in a few years and the modesty apron style soon looked old fashioned.

1960's Lycra Women's Swimwear

By the mid 1960s, fabrics were mainly nylon or Lycra or a mix of the two materials. The all-important factor was stretch and pull on like a pair of panties.

The front panel of the garment and crotch were both cut as one. Other variations include little pleated or flared over skirts with the idea of covering saddlebag thighs.

By the late sixties swimsuits had revealing side mesh net panels or cut out midriffs filled in with see through plastic rings. The swimsuit did its best to keep up with competition from the two-piece bikini by abbreviating it even further by cutting the legs higher as well as straight across. What is now thought of as high leg is much higher than the high leg of 1970 over 30 years ago and the phrase 'low leg' is now used to name the sixties high cut leg.

The Bikini

In 1946 Louis Réard, a former automotive engineer and the son of a lingerie shop owner, joined the hundreds thronging St. Tropez on the French Mediterranean in the euphoria following the end of the Nazi occupation. There he noticed that juenes filles rolled down the waists of their two-pieces and hitched up their tops to catch more sun. This inspired his bikini, a tiny number named after an atoll where the United States had tested the atomic bomb. It consisted basically of two triangles of fabric on the top and two more, front and back, on the bottom.

He introduced his creation at a fashion event at Piscine Molitor, a popular public pool in Paris. He couldn’t find a model willing to wear such an outfit, so the bikini made its debut on a stripper, Micheline Bernardini. Réard promoted his bathing suit by selling it in a matchbox and declared, “A bikini is not a bikini unless it can be pulled through a wedding ring.” Around the same time Jacques Heim, known for classic sportswear designs, introduced the “Atome,” which he dubbed “the smallest bathing suit in the world.”

Both designs lived up to their explosive names with the controversy they garnered. The bikini was banned in both Italy and Spain, where the authorities led tourists wearing it off the beach. The American fashion industry was

appalled. As late as 1957 Modern Girl magazine wrote, “It is hardly necessary to waste words on the so-called bikini, since it is inconceivable that any girl with tact and decency would ever wear such a thing.” American women still typically wrapped themselves in architectonic swimwear with menacingly conical bras.

But others, particularly French vacationers, were delighted. “Remember that no one had been to the beach in years,” said Jamie Samet, a fashion writer for Le Figaro. “People were craving the simple pleasures of the sea and the sun. For women, wearing a bikini signaled a kind of second liberation. There was really nothing sexual about this. It was instead a celebration of freedom and a return to the joys in life.”

The bikini took off as a global phenomenon thanks to Brigitte Bardot. The young French actress wore hers scandalously low on her hips with a barely-there top—when she wore a top at all. With her cascading blonde hair and complete comfort with her body, she became the big screen’s first sex kitten. The success her 1956 film . . . And God Created Woman was not lost on American actresses. Marilyn Monroe tossed her swimming trunks for a pair of white panties and a bandeau top, and others followed.

By the early sixties, the bikini had taken hold in America. In 1960 Brian Hyland’s paean to it, “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” made the top ten. Annette Funicello, who started out as a Mouseketeer, donned a bikini in the movie Beach Party in 1963 and made such a hit that six sequels followed, including How to Stuff a Wild Bikini.

In the fifties the bikini was still thought of as risqué and best suited to film stars and strippers, but a tame version of the fashion a two-piece playsuit was often seen as were skirted 1950s swimsuits.

The first bikini worn by a stripper in 1947 Below is a 1970’s swimsuit and of course Elle McPherson in an 80’s high cut.

Swimwear in the 20th Century Quiz

1. What fabric were the 1920’s bathing suits made of?

2. Where did the leg of the 1920’s swimsuit stop?

3. What type of Hollywood films promoted the swimsuit?

4. Who were the famous Hollywood stars that promoted the swimsuit in 1930’s?

5. In the 1940’s what was the reason that corset manufacturers made swimwear?

6. What decade was lycra invented?

7. What year was the bikini invented and by whom?

8. Who designed a topless swimsuit in the 1970’s?

9. What was the typical 1980’s swimsuit cut? Draw the following swimsuits, 1920’s, 1940’s, 1970’s and 1980’s. on a separate piece of paper. Please hand it in with your quiz answers next week.