From Bloomers to Burkinis: The 150-Year Battle Over Bathing Suits

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In the 1850s, there was public outcry over women wearing bathing bloomers; in the 1950s, it was outrage at the bikini. Now the burkini is the latest front in the war over what women can wear to the beach.

Times of Ahmad | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: The Daily Beast
By Sarah Shears | September 3, 2016

In the 1950s, governments in Europe and across the Mediterranean tried to ban and discourage women from wearing a new controversial swimsuit: the Bikini. Now, it’s happening again, but with burkinis—the latest front in a long Western war over what women may wear in public spaces shared with men, especially those by the water that lend themselves to states of undress.

Long before specialized swimwear for women was created, women and men were segregated wherever water and recreational activities were combined. By the middle of the 19th century, when the restorative powers of sea water were all the rage, the fashionable set headed to seashore resort towns. Women would be carried into the ocean in “bathing machines” in which they could strip down to their bathing clothes, closer to long dresses than anything we would call swimwear now, and then descend into the water far from the prying eyes of the men on the beach.

The shift to modern swimwear began far from the beach in the mid-19th century, when American women’s rights advocate Amelia Bloomer began promoting a style of clothing then known as “Turkish Dress,” inspired by the less restrictive harem pants of the Muslim Ottoman Empire and intended to let women move more easily while doing things like walking up stairs while carrying children, doing housework and gardening.

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-- courtesy Jonathan MAG

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