Here's a trippy pic; a swimsuit designer from about 60 years ago, impressing the boss of the now defunct, I believe, the Cole Swimsuit Company. I "nicked" it off the Sheerio Site.
-- Edited by Breeziestroke on Monday 25th of July 2011 11:34:37 AM
Here's a trippy pic; a swimsuit designer from about 60 years ago, impressing the boss of the now defunct, I believe, the Cole Swimsuit Company. I "nicked" it off the Sheerio Site.
-- Edited by Breeziestroke on Monday 25th of July 2011 11:34:37 AM
I find the one piece bathing suit to be more sexy than the bikini.
There's just something about the squared of crotch that really turns me on. Perhaps because it was pretty much the style when I was younger and first discovered how much I enjoyed it.
I can't pin it down; sometime in the early '40's, they stopped using all that awful wool in swimwear, for both genders. I think, after World War Two, they came out with some really trippy Tricots, just as soft as undies, just as visually explosive, yet more suitable for swimwear (standing up to chlorine and seawater), and more stretchy/rippley/opaque/glossy.
That's what these oh, so luscious Cole Swimsuit babes are wearing. Just as exciting as undies, these swimsuits rippled, flexed, glided, and whipsawed across a pretty lass'es countours, far, far better than today's spandex suits--until the chlorine and-or seawater begins to break down the fabric and gives it a bit o' billow to flex, ripple, whipsaw, and glide over those contours. Otherwise, I can't put my finger on it, but Winkie starts a'dancin' when I see swimwear, as well as choice lingerie, overall, of this vintage. The fabric looks just as alive, as the person who wears it; yeah, that's it!!
Today's spandexes, and the folks who manufacture today's swimwear, claim they have all these newfangled processes and fabrics that claim to defeat seawater and chlorine degradation. Bulls-hit!! Look at the laundering tags on the garment, and I bet you dollars to doughnuts, they'll say: "no chlorine bleach". These folks are wet in more ways than one. By the way, some swimming pool operators are now using alternatives to chlorine, to sanitize their pool's water. Just let all this fuss die down, and go back to using the old-fashioned sexy Tricots, and that will settle the issue, for now and ever more!! And quit it already, with these damned slingshot thongs!!
Ironically, people in the old days also knew how to move about in these pretties, in a more sexy manner, in a far more understated fashion. And that, belive it or not, includes the fuller cut Tricot swimbriefs that men also wore back in the day, and the men, themselves, who wore them. Nowadays, it's all so blatant, crass, and obvious, that it's almost an assault, the sweet grace of it all, is gone, all gone. They've got it all wrong, and they don't care.
Clothes have as much to communicate, as does the wearer.
-- Edited by Breeziestroke on Tuesday 26th of July 2011 04:20:00 PM
-- Edited by Breeziestroke on Tuesday 26th of July 2011 04:31:06 PM
-- Edited by Breeziestroke on Tuesday 26th of July 2011 04:32:31 PM
And something about the lasses, back in the day. They had a lot more curves to their bodies' contours. Marilyn Monroe was the acme, with her very bubbly thighs, tummie, calves, and fanny. Today's chicks completely miss the mark, with their anorexic concentration camp look.
Conversely, guys looked a lot better, back in the day. They were strapping and sleek, looking very virile, in their sensible masculinity. The late President Ronald Reagan was once a male model, and he was the acme, of male body development.
These steroid-ridden, artificial hormone-ridden, "muscle men" today, look like grotesqueiries, almost monsters, with their overladen bulges, that look like they would almost break, if they moved. There's nothing masculine-looking about this at all. "Ahhnolld" now looks all dissapated, a shell of his former self, since he stopped the "muscle-building" steroids and hormones, and I think it shows, and showed, in how he conducted the affairs of his life, and affairs, and the affairs of the State of California.
I can't pin it down; sometime in the early '40's, they stopped using all that awful wool in swimwear, for both genders. I think, after World War Two, they came out with some really trippy Tricots, just as soft as undies, just as visually explosive, yet more suitable for swimwear (standing up to chlorine and seawater), and more stretchy/rippley/opaque/glossy.
That's what these oh, so luscious Cole Swimsuit babes are wearing. Just as exciting as undies, these swimsuits rippled, flexed, glided, and whipsawed across a pretty lass'es countours, far, far better than today's spandex suits--until the chlorine and-or seawater begins to break down the fabric and gives it a bit o' billow to flex, ripple, whipsaw, and glide over those contours. Otherwise, I can't put my finger on it, but Winkie starts a'dancin' when I see swimwear, as well as choice lingerie, overall, of this vintage. The fabric looks just as alive, as the person who wears it; yeah, that's it!!
Today's spandexes, and the folks who manufacture today's swimwear, claim they have all these newfangled processes and fabrics that claim to defeat seawater and chlorine degradation. Bulls-hit!! Look at the laundering tags on the garment, and I bet you dollars to doughnuts, they'll say: "no chlorine bleach". These folks are wet in more ways than one. By the way, some swimming pool operators are now using alternatives to chlorine, to sanitize their pool's water. Just let all this fuss die down, and go back to using the old-fashioned sexy Tricots, and that will settle the issue, for now and ever more!! And quit it already, with these damned slingshot thongs!!
Ironically, people in the old days also knew how to move about in these pretties, in a more sexy manner, in a far more understated fashion. And that, belive it or not, includes the fuller cut Tricot swimbriefs that men also wore back in the day, and the men, themselves, who wore them. Nowadays, it's all so blatant, crass, and obvious, that it's almost an assault, the sweet grace of it all, is gone, all gone. They've got it all wrong, and they don't care.
Clothes have as much to communicate, as does the wearer.
-- Edited by Breeziestroke on Tuesday 26th of July 2011 04:20:00 PM
-- Edited by Breeziestroke on Tuesday 26th of July 2011 04:31:06 PM
-- Edited by Breeziestroke on Tuesday 26th of July 2011 04:32:31 PM
Also, when the all wool bathing suits were hot and when wet, soggy and heavy. If one was to go to far into the water, either fresh or salt, the possibility of drowning was present.
Also, when the all wool bathing suits were hot and when wet, soggy and heavy. If one was to go to far into the water, either fresh or salt, the possibility of drowning was present.
I believe, Puss, that the proliferation of wool swimsuits, at first called "bathing" suits, along with the notion that women could be allowed to swim, came around the 1870's, when the idea of recreation and tourism took hold in our Western Civilization (Civilisation, for our friends of The Crown.). The womens' "bathing" costumes, for about until just after World War One, were even more atrocious and abominable. Covered from neck to ankle, and the arms up to the wrists, were these extremely heavy wool voluminous bloomer affairs, with an attached flouncy skirt that went to the knees or mid-calf, and a selfsame big cap, bonnet, poke bonnet, or beanie, to "protect" and cover the hair--the coarse wool in these beanies could shred a woman's very long and beautiful hair, if she was in turbulent waters. Heck, they even had "bathing" corsets, to wear underneath! I should consider those outfits, extremely hazardous, as well as painfully uncomfortable, for women to swim in--if all of that fabric would allow a woman to kick her legs, and swing her arms, in order for her to do a swimming stroke--let alone wallow out into waters at breast height!
The men as well, didn't fare as well, again up to the 1920's. "Bathing" costumes for them, meant coverage from the neck to knees, and sleeves that reached to the elbows. Such extreme hazard and discomfort, in the pursuit of modesty.
Sigh! If only Queen Victoria's highly beloved and dashingly handsome Prince Albert could have grown old with her, instead of dying as a young man, in the 1860's, she wouldn't have inflicted her grief on the rest of us, in the form of extreme repression, expressed in the fashions of the day. Oh, well.
When the 1920's hit, womens' single-piece swimsuits became a little more sensible, with tank-tops, and legs that went to mid-thigh--much more practical for swinging the legs for swimming strokes. The lower portion of mens' suits, by contrast, started to verge on brief-style legs, although suits for both genders, actually had a unisex look to to them, if you ask me. Some daring men would actually sport waist briefs, leaving their hairy torsos uncovered. Shocking! But it was all still done in that damnable heavy wool!
The late 1930's would bring some very welcum changes, indeed, including the two-piece for women, which, interestingly, after the first A-Bomb tests at Bikini Atoll, would then be called Bikinis! The last time women donned bikinis, was way back in the Patrician world of the Roman Empire, thousands of years ago. As best as I know, men swam nude back then.
Prior to the 1870's, women, by and large, were discouraged from swimming, as the activity was considered dangerous to a woman's "very fragile health". And men used their undies--their Long-John Dr. Denton Union Suits--to double as swimsuits. Those would have been safer and more comfortable than the infernal Wool affairs--except for Winter Underwear which was Wool--and except for woven Cotton/Muslin/Linen/Flax broadcloth, some of these Long Johns did actually come in a primitive 1 X 1 Cotton Rib-Knit, that in the main, was coarser than what's been largely used in contemporary TW's (Need I explain those initials?). I believe the Rib-Knit knitting process for Cotton and natural fibers with similar properties, was invented somewhere in the 1820's.
By contrast, I believe that our "holy" Tricot Knit process, is now about One Hundred years old, about the same age as Acetate and Rayon/Viscose, just a little before World War One. Nylon, which most readily leant itself to the Tricot Knitting process, along with Acetate and Rayon, as you may know, didn't cum on the scene, until 1937; Polyester, until the early 1950's.
-- Edited by Breeziestroke on Tuesday 26th of July 2011 08:24:52 PM
-- Edited by Breeziestroke on Tuesday 26th of July 2011 08:29:26 PM
