Old time swim suits or beach wear is comical to today's fashions. It is hard to imagine that woman could be comfortable at the beach in such get ups. What's more is that almost all these bathing suits are black, they were hot and I don't mean sexy. Most of the images here are from 1890-1910 and are guaranteed to make to smile.

 The Haydn Quartet - My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean - Press Play Button

Old Time Swim Suits

Here's an article from the San Francisco Call from 1902 that explains the swim suit fashion for the day -  

Hurrah for the bathing girl again. This year she has come with more vim than ever before and she has firmly announced that she intends to stay forever and a day. Several summers back it was considered the proper caper to take a dray load of trunks to the seaside and stay there as long as swelldom did. And in one of the many trunks there was a dapper little suit that was popularly supposed to sport with the big breakers that tried to get frolicsome. Sometimes it did get wet, but purely by accident; but it was not accident that sent the same frock to the water's edge day after day. No, that was vanity. But this year things hare been wholly
different. Bathing costumes have a combined duty— serviceableness and daintiness. How many girls know how to swim these days? Nearly all of them; in fact, the girl who cannot tumble about in the water is an exception these days. Tank swimming has been so popular all winter and so many impromptu little parties have been made up on the spur of the moment, that even the stragglers knew it was high time for them, to make a bluff at it anyhow.

Visit any of the tanks any night and see the people enter the water. A chap may dive In, and so may his sister, for that matter, but she will generally climb down the steps until she has felt the water and is half way in and then away she goes every bit as gracefully as her brother. She swims the breast stroke for a while and then tries it over and over until she catches up with him, and then as like as not she will turn over on her back and try floating for a time, just by way of variety. After fooling about for awhile up she goes on the rings and with great swings circles the tank until at last she is compelled to scramble back on the boards or go into the water head first. Which does she do? Without an instant's hesitation she gives a good swing, throws up her arms and slides into the water as easily as any mermaid could. That Is the bathing girl of 1902.

Below - Lillian Langston, Edith Roberts, and Myrtle Reeves on an unknown beach in 1918. May be ordered as a poster or a print on paper or canvas. You can even have it matted and framed for a one of a kind piece of art.

Bathing Beauty's 1918 by oldiesbutgoodies
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When such sport is considered a part of her regular exercise, naturally she must have some suit that Is distinctly her own and that was made with a view to suit her particular requirements. For if there is one thing under the shining sun that is more trying another, that thing is a bathing suit. After they are wet they cling and stick as closely as possible and the young lady who has not the figure of Venus feels rather shy at displaying all her defects so openly. .
But there are suits for everybody nowadays. Visit Gantner & Mattern's and see how they have taken the heavy and slender woman into careful consideration. The stout woman, for Instance, should wear a knitted, ,woolen suit. The wool clings and, what makes it infinitely more comfortable, it feels much warmer and more pleasant when in or out of the water. If one steps out to go down the cold air does not rush in and drive that nasty, clammy feeling that is so apt to accompany mohair.

Old Time Men's Swim Suits

The guy on the left is feeling sassy in his suit in 1882. On the right, even in 1901 the model had to make a goofy pose for the ads.

The Little Duchess Musical Comedy 1906 by oldiesbutgoodies
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