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The Specialized Swimsuit Swimming as a sport is only one of several factors contributing to the evolution of the swimsuit. The First World War, the automobile, the musical theater, and Hollywood's silent movies all contribute to freer clothing and the lifestyle which will culminate in the Roaring Twenties. Bathing at beaches also undergoes a sociological change. The new railroads make beaches accessible, and tans become fashionable as a sign of affluence and health. Separate bathing areas for men and women are abandoned, and on the emerging mixed-sex beaches suit styles reflect a somewhat androgynous look for both sexes. Venice Beach and Atlantic City become sites for bathing beauty contests. By the latter half of the teens, the swimsuit has become a truly specialized garment with a solidified design. Unitard momentum continues into the late 1910s, both in its pure form (DB1650) as well as in more traditional theater attire, leotard and tights (RS1650). But nowhere better than this single picture of The Keystone Bathing Girls can you simultaneous see both the unitard...and the future (KY1650). And the future is legs...bare legs. Kellerman and others experiment with wraps--a silhouette whose species is a modern terms a strapless minidress that bares the shoulders, arms, and legs (LM1635). But the wrap is too complicated for swimming--and the breakout direction is the maillot pantaloon--the unitard minus legs...but not always without stockings...As you can see in the Keystone Bathing Girls (KY1650). The maillot pantaloon in crisp form is a tank leotard with knee-length bloomers. It is a single layer woven or knit wool garment accessorized with shoes, socks (stockings) and a hat (fig. 6-1). As worn by a Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty this silhouette in the late teens and into the early 1920s can range from the frilly to the more contoured, with contoured winning out. An alternative is the maillot skirted pantaloon, also a tank but also with a short skirt that reaches below hip level and covers the crotch. This is more modest but also more playful, and will come to dominate in the 1920s. The evolution of maillot in the late 1910s and early 1920s focuses on two major erogenous zones: the neckline and bust, and the legline, particularly the knee. The neckline ranges from short-sleeved collared suits to open necklined tank tops which fit the body both closer but also much looser, often with no internal support for the breasts (fig. 6-2). Open armholes also demonstrate cleavage side. A maillot pantaloon quite wet can be exhilarating (EK1610). But cleavage is not new; leggage is. The Battle over Leg The revelation of bare leg requires more careful deliberation. For one thing fashion is cautious about legs and approaches them more than one way. Working up from the foot is one approach: bare the toe and heel in the tights, loose the straps and work upward. The uncovering of the ankle, the calf, the knee all occurs very quickly during the late 1910s. You can see this if you look again at the first Keystone Girls--mostly covered legs, a rare bare leg and feet, but also, ah ha, some bare knees (KY1650). Uncovering the knee is a curious fission; the exposure opens up from a fracture point on the body and spreads. Framed above by the bloomer, descending down the thigh from the crotch, and below, by socks or hose rising up the calf, the knee is stripped bare. It was no wonder that Ziegfield star Ann Pennington is called "The Girl With Dimpled Knees" (fig. 6-3). As the teens progress, men and women attempt to raise the pantaloons and expose more thigh, but they are met with official resistance (). Women retaliate in the opposite direction by letting their exposed leg creep downward (fig. 6-4). By the end of the decade, the socks are replaced with high boots (fig. 6-5) or simply abandoned. The leg is now bare from above the knee to the ankle (fig. 6-XX), with shoes and feet in play. And then, still moving quickly and before the turn of the decade, the shoe is abandoned, and the erogenous sometimes hidden feet are now sometimes put on display (fig. 6-6). But always a hat remains mandatory coverage for the proper woman on a public beach. This maillot pantaloons silhouette--with and without the skirt--will sail into the early 1920s with vary little variance in total exposure. It will disburse rapidly from the movie magazine to the real beach worldwide for practical and liberating reasons. Both silhouettes become more colorful, lower waistlined, more contoured to the body, and increasingly devoid of inner support. Satin, silk, and taffeta are alternate materials to wool, and rubberized fabrics are introduced after 1917. Short-sleeved and sleeveless styles will remain popular, as do a wide variety of shoulder straps and cleavage. The silhouette becomes more vertical, the waistline lowers, and the skirt and bloomers assume a wide variety of proportions. Patterns, especially stripes and geometrics, brighter colors, jersey and knitted fabrics identify the trend more so than edge line. Nudity in the Cinema Hollywood takes a turn to the more extreme after 1915 when it discovers that the public's appetite for the moves goes beyond the one-reeler. Using Biblical, historical, moral, and naturalist arguments denudity acquires a lot of velocity during the Great War. We have just recounted events in our primary focus, the swimsuit. Surrounding this are bejeweled Queens of cinema, vamps, and harem dancers. Griffith is already offering up topless extras, and after 1915 Theda Bara's breastplates and see-through (TB1710) set a pace. Australian swim champ, swimsuit pioneer, and diving tank performer Annette Kellerman is also not to be outdone by Theda Bara. She has already achieved fame as an athlete and inventor of the unitard (AK0650), which she introduces to the movies before the turn of the decade (AK0915) . In the early 1910s she stars in a series of aquatic pictures playing Sirens, Mermaids, and Neptune's Daughter. As these pictures progressed they show more of Kellerman's legs. She has become a public advocate of the maillot pantaloon swimsuit. But now even more controversy erupts when Kellerman, the big name star in the big-budget A Daughter of the Gods, sheds her swimsuit completely and bathes nude in the outdoors (AK1610). Kellerman's maillotless movie advocates the naturalist movement. As an athlete and spokesman for the advancement of women, Kellerman is onvincing women everywhere to adopt the one-piece swimsuit. But advocacy for the naturalist movement, however, including nudity in the cinema will remain a battleground into the next decade, with Clara Bow, Heddy Lamarr and others dancing that line. The Andrea Munson Sidebar Kellerman is not alone in bringing nudity to the movies. Like now, déshabillé is practiced not just in the movies but in fashion, on stage, and in magazines. One of Kellerman's peers is another socialite, New York City artists' model Andrea Munson. Like Kellerman, Munson builds strength in New York in the first half of the decade when she achieves celebrity status as a famous sculptors' nude model. The short version is her fame lands her a Hollywood contract to play a nude model on film (MU15-21). Some say this is a first. For the Bikini Scientist Munson is interesting because she demonstrates crossover talent, she is a "new media girl." Her likenesses are in all cases replicas, formed in one case in stone or paint and in the other in celluloid. But she moves her talent and dignity from one form to the other. This is, in Goffman terms, a framing shift, further framed by her role as a model. On Stage at the Dance Hall Other movie stars also choose to wear very little, even by modern standards. Alla Nazimova bares her navel in this "pre-bikini bikini" (AZ191710) and Kellerman is another who adopts the bare-midriff, low-waistline look. While women on the real beach grapple with the politics of the leg, the view into the future is found in the nightclubs of Paris, where deux-pièces, soutien-gorge of all descriptions, waistlines that reveal the belly button, long legs, and bare breast topless costumes abound (CP2000). These exposures, begun in the early part of the decade will only gain momentum in the 1920s, be checked in the 1930s, and emerge again in the 1940s and beyond. |
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