In 1920, the First World War had ended, women had won the right to vote and the children of a tidal wave of immigrants came of age. This ‘new generation’, the Jazz Age kids, challenged restrictions on bathing suits from Victorian times. From the Atlantic City Press June 1920:
“Even during the prospective shortage of bathing suits, there will be no lifting of the ban against the one-piece rig. according to the directors of beach bathing suit censorship, who continue to shoo off shapely maids who appear skirtless. Bare knees continue to be taboo despite the frowns and pouts of the summer girls, but the position of the special coppers charged with the job of keeping hose up is no summer sinecure.”
Private collection of author
This bathing group was up with the times in 1928. The suits were still wool, (alpaca was the best, as it dried fast and sagged less), For the first time women showed arms and legs, and they also cut their hair to match the chic look of the flappers, actress Greta Garbo, and pilot Amelia Erhardt.
Of course when you left the sand, you either needed to go to a bathhouse and dress, or like these kids, you needed a set of bathing pajamas.
Private collection of author
Spring Lake was particularly hard on bathers who left the beach and walked the streets in swimwear.
The Associated Press reported in July 1925, “Four bathers paid $5 fines each today when arraigned and found guilty of violating the bathing ordinance by appearing on the streets with their bathing suits not covered.” Manasquan repeatedly arrested people for changing in their cars.
Some of the people in charge looked back to a more modest day. They preferred what bathing was like in 1885. From the sand in Sea Girt:
1885 Marriott C. Morris Collection, courtesy of Library Company of Philadelphia
Note that Sea Girt was more progressive than other resorts in that the men and women could bathe together and at any hour they chose.
Sea Girt - “There are just three chief things to do here ride, bathe and talk. And everybody does them all. It is, too, perhaps, the only extremely swell seaside resort in the country in which the whole community goes down and "dips" at once.”
“The fashionable Philadelphia maidens over at stately Elberon would be horrified at the mention of such a thing for them. Even the girls here cease to go into the sea when they go away to other resorts, but while they remain here they make the most of their liberty.”
“There are no forbidding rules as to the length of time a girl may bathe. She may wet her toes and lie on the sand all morning if she pleases, and- sometimes she does, without fear that anybody will spring a time clock on her. The bathing drosses have a Sea Girt stamp on them. They were apparently all made on the same block and dyed in the same cauldron. They are so blue that they look black, and so tight they fit all over like gloves.
That is "nice for swimming and floating, isn't it? The skirts come to the knee and are met with black stockings, and now and again a girl wears a pair of black silk slippers. For relief of color a handkerchief of fiery red silk is worn twisted Turkish fashion around the head, and when all the girls are plunged in a big roller you might fancy an immense Prussian flag were spread out on the sea, an array of red-bound heads on one end, a long line of black toes on the other and the white foam of the surf in the middle.”
After the radical changes of the 1920s, the next big development was more vivid color, tighter fitting knit wools of the Jantzen company who used Hollywood stars to model. The 1940s saw the benefits of rayon, and midriff two-piece and flared skirts dominated the look.
The dress turned to a skirt and then was gone. Smoother tanks ruled the 1950s, but the new bikini of the 60s would have made the flappers of the 20s blush. Note in the picture below, the woman leaving the beach still has a “babydoll” beach pajama, now called a “coverup” over her bathing suit.
Private collection of the author
In 1964, at Spring Lake a boutique called the Snooty Pooch noted they had sold several versions of a new bathing suit for women, called the monokini, a topless swimsuit with straps that exposed the female breasts, conceived in 1964 by avant-garde designer Rudi Gernreich. There were reports all over the Shore that summer of topless women, but none were apprehended by the local police.
The “topless bikini” never caught on in the United States, while French women shed their tops by the end of the decade. The best explanation was by the Hollywood star of the era Debbie Reynolds,
“I don't think the topless suit will catch. Reality can seldom measure up to men's imaginations. Most women just aren’t built that fabulously to warrant such exposure.”
Polar Plunge Asbury Park photo by Vincent J. Dicks
Today, there are suits to match all bodies and fitness levels. The internet and social media cut both ways. Some need to show it off, and others are afraid of being posted in an unflattering way. Short of public nudity in the wrong place, there are not many rules left. Good taste and fear of public opinion keep people modest, but others do what they will.
The shot for a post is as important as the outfit. Photo by Vincent J. Dicks