Imagine, you are man living in the early 1900s. It's a hot summer day and you want to cool down in the sea. You plan to head to the beach late in the afternoon, and hope that there is a bathing shed available. After all, you will need to change out of your clothes into your bathers. Of course, although you look forward to cooling down, you don't look forward to having to put your bathers on. The wool is so scratchy, and when it gets wet it is clingy and heavy and simply horrible.
When I took these mens bathers to show the children, they were horrified. At first, they thought the bathers were some sort of strange underwear, and it wasn't until I gave them several hints that they realised just what the bathers were. Swim wear is so different today, particularly for men, that the woollen, one piece bathers, complete with modesty skirt, were a totally bizarre idea to the children. The bathers are Jantzen brand, made for men and there is actually an original advertisement (below) for the brand still on Museum Station in Sydney. When the children felt the material the bathers were made out of they were truly horrified though. The bathers are thick, black wool, and very scratchy. I am reliably informed that when wet they become even worse and very heavy. The idea of these bathers against their skin was more than the children could cope with, though several did try them on over their school clothes.
Swimsuits, whether mens or womens, have a fascinating history. Today, I will be focusing on the history of mens swimsuits, but I will return to womens another time. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, modesty was a real issue for men. It was simply not done to expose yourself or show too much skin. Even in about 1910, mens bathers actually looked a lot like their 'skivies' or underwear. Bathers were often a single piece with buttons on the front, and had short sleeves, covered the chest, and the legs went almost to the knee.
By the 1920s mens bathers had moved away from the 'underwear' look towards more form fitting and athletic styles of swimsuits. There were still a lot of issues around modesty though and many 'rules', both actually in law and informal which impacted what men could wear to swim. Men still couldn't be seen with a bare chest and there were rules which said they had to wear a 'modesty skirt' over the swimtrunks. Even little boys had to cover their chests in the early 1920s, as in the photo of above (from my family collection - don't they look uncomfortable!). The swimsuit I showed the children has the modesty skirt built in. If they didn't wear a skirt, men had to wear loose flannel shorts to their knees, in order to preserve their modesty. Men pushed for the right to uncover their chests and by the 1930s swim trunks, or modestly cut shorts, were allowed to be worn without a chest cover, but bathers still couldn't be too revealing in the hip area. It wasn't until the 1960s and 70s that brief, tight and formfitting bathers were commonly worn by men.
