Sunday, April 4, 2010

Where have all the Mermaids Gone?

We have had a veritable (and may I say delicious) warm spell here, in Ontario. It prompted my dragging shorts out of the closet and then contemplating my sad, sun-deprived body (when I was a child, we used to say "you have skin like a miller's daughter")....

.....and then, thoughts of bathing suits flooded my head and I had to run and hide in a corner for a while, like a child hiding from chores...alas, the bathing suits of 1910s and 1920s were so much less, how shall I put it, "engaging", "obligating"?
 
 


The photos range in date from 1908 to 1929. I adore these women, some genuinely thrilled to be on the beach, close to water, in a bathing suit?!! I love their knees and real-woman-thighs, their grins....
....here's to summer's carefree abandon and a different bathing suit for each day of the week !!!!!
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photos: Library of Congress, State Library of New South Wales

2 comments:

  1. I absolutely love this black and white pictures!:-)They always seem to tell a story. I agree with you: the girls on the pictures do look very happy and healthy. Having all that said, I have to admit that I am so very happy that the evolution of the bathing suit permited us, women,to get out of this floppy shapless combosuits ladies had to wear in the beginning of the past century. :-)))
    Also, I wanted to tell you that I always have been very proud of my very white sking untouched by the sun. I always go extra mile to protecting my skin from tanning.The last time I went tanning I was 12 :-)))So I am white as a "miller's daughter" :-) I am wishing you wonderful Easter and sending million happy Easter sun bunnies your way.:-)

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  2. Those were the days.
    Carefree abandon would be just the ticket !
    (If only.)

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