These panoramic photos of Roaring ‘20s beach beauties are retro summer chic
Flappers’ delight
They had the vote. After decades of struggle for suffrage, the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920 meant a new era for women’s rights in America. Growing equality had women free to dress, drink, and date more freely—and a changing, consumer-driven economy met the employment needs of a generation of independent women eager to shed the conventions of the past.
Bathing suits have always mirrored the fashion and social particulars of their time. Victorian ladies, leaving pretty much everything to the imagination, sported flannel dresses and petticoats to the beach. In the 1910s, athletic-inspired suits were slowly replacing their billowy predecessors, and by the 1920s the one-piece was established. Or as Vogue put it at the time, “the newest thing for the sea is a jersey bathing suit as near a maillot as the unwritten law will permit.”
These panoramic photos of seaside beauty pageants show an overlap of older styles and newer trends in coastal couture. Many women still rocked the elaborate stockings of previous decades, or suits adorned with layers of trim and elaborate hems. What’s clear is their willingness to use apparel as a pronouncement of personal identity. Women were no longer interested in the forced modesty of yesteryear. Bathing machines and inhibitions had been dropped, hemlines were way up, and a day at the beach would never be the same.
