Sexy Girl: The swimsuit suffragettes
Arrested for indecent exposure if they bared their bodies to swim, drowning in their crinolines if they didn’t — women had to fight for the right to get their kit off. By Deirdre Fernand
When Emily Davison died by falling under the king’s horse during the Derby of 1913, she entered the history books as one of Britain’s militant suffragettes. Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst also famously struggled to gain the vote, enduring imprisonment and force-feeding for the sake of future generations of women. The story of female emancipation is full of extraordinary individuals – many of whom have remained in the shadow of their more famous sisters.
Two such women, Agnes Beckwith and Annette Kellerman, feature in a new book, The Swimsuit, which traces its history from Victorian cover-up to today’s bare-all fashion statement. As its author, Sarah Kennedy, says, “the bathing costume is a perfect social barometer. No item of clothing has evolved as dramatically as the swimsuit”.
Beckwith and Kellerman were also pioneers. They wanted to take part in the newly fashionable pursuits of cycling and swimming. “Bicycling has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world,” said the suffragette Susan Anthony in 1896. “I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride on a wheel. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance.” Meanwhile, railways had made sea-bathing in resorts such as Brighton affordable. Men could swim in their long johns, but women could only bob around, hindered by voluminous fabric. Many immersed themselves wearing their crinolines.
If Davison wanted the vote, like a man, Beckwith wanted to get in the water like a man. “She fought long battles with the authorities to wear garments that wouldn’t restrict her,” says Kennedy. “Or drown her.” In 1875, Beckwith, then a teenager, swam four miles from London Bridge to Greenwich. That she managed this wearing a full-skirted dress, petticoats, pantaloons and stockings without ?being dragged under is a miracle. Such outfits were made from heavy serge, cotton drill and wool. Often the hems were weighted. Women could drown while taking a swim. Conscious of such dangers, they grew increasingly vociferous. One of them was the American Amelia Bloomer. During the 1850s she had promoted the rational dress movement, in particular the newly introduced loose trousers worn under a shorter skirt. These didn’t catch on until later, when they became known as bloomers, but they were adapted for swimming. By the turn of the century, dark “princess suits” became popular – dark colours hid the degree of wetness. Modesty still prevailed. “In Europe and America women could be arrested for revealing too many inches of calf,” explains Kennedy. “Wardens patrolled beaches to ensure that local laws were being adhered to.”
Beckwith became a sensation, holding shows in which she would tread water for 30 hours in the whale tank of the Royal Aquarium at Westminster. Posters billed her as ?“The Greatest Lady Swimmer in the World”. Her figure-hugging swimsuit revealed her legs. Scandalous. ?No wonder the future Edward VII patronised her show.
But it was the Australian sportswoman Annette Kellerman who made the leap from Victorian prudery into the modern era. In 1907 she was arrested at a public beach in Boston for indecent exposure: for wearing a one-piece bathing suit with no skirt or pantaloons. Kellerman, who escaped a prison sentence, had been fighting all her life. Rickets had left her barely able to walk as a child, and she had worn leg braces until she was seven. To gain strength she started swimming, and was soon winning competitions in Australia. At 16 she held the women’s world 100-metres record. In 1905 she swam 42 kilometres down the Thames in five hours, and in Paris she raced 17 men down the Seine, finishing third. She was the first woman to attempt to swim the English Channel. When she toured the US ?she performed diving stunts and underwater ballet in a ?glass tank. Her daring routines would later inspire Busby Berkeley films. No wonder she hated the restrictive princess suits, balking at the “awful water overcoats – those awkward, unnecessary, lumpy bathing suits” and railed against their dangers, claiming they “have caused more deaths by drowning than cramps”.
Men could get away with knitted one-piece suits with short sleeves and shorts-style legs. Legend has it that Kellerman sewed her own wool stockings to one of these suits, creating a unitard. With nothing of her body shape left to the imagination, she quickly became a pin-up. She went on to star in early Hollywood films such as Siren of the Sea and The Mermaid, both made in 1911. Later, her life was celebrated in the 1952 movie Million Dollar Mermaid, starring Esther Williams.
It was the burgeoning film industry of the 1920s that made the swimsuit synonymous with glamour. California had the climate, beaches, girls and film studios. Then an American company developed Lastex, ?a stretch rubber thread, in 1931. Finally, a swimsuit that didn’t go soggy. Fabrics such as Lycra followed.
California’s beach culture has dominated the world, despite the best efforts of the French with the bikini. The engineer Louis Réard claimed to have invented it in 1946, naming it after the atoll of Bikini in the Pacific, where nuclear weapons had just been tested. At the same time, Jacques Heim, a clothing manufacturer, came up with ?the “Atome”. But Réard trumped Heim. After catwalk models had refused to wear the bikini on grounds of indecency, Réard turned to a dancer, Micheline Bernardini, to parade it. Pictures of her were flashed around the world. “What was really shocking was the navel,” says Kennedy.
When European starlets such as Brigitte Bardot wore the bikini in the 1950s, fashion photographers took notice. “The swimsuit was equated with health-consciousness and glamour,” says Kennedy. Swimwear shoots ushered in the age of Sports Illustrated and the Pirelli calendar. Millions of men now appreciated Christie Brinkley, particularly after she had modelled the thong. But when we view these modern-day poster girls, the Brinkleys and Macphersons with their glossy locks and bronzed bodies, we should pause and remember the brave women more than 150 years ago who fought so hard for the right to swim. ?So many of them were not waving but drowning.
