May 23, 2025 • 9 mins
If women in the 1800s wanted to take a swim . . they were pulled into the surf in a cabana on wheels, wearing 30 pounds of wet wool. So how did we get to the bikini, much less the thong?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
As we get ready for the summer season this Memorial
Day weekend, we have to revisit the history of bathing suits.
Why were women wearing things that looked like linen nightgowns
to swim in back in the seventeen hundreds. More importantly,
why did they slip into thirty pounds of wet wool
for a dip in the ocean just over a century ago?
And how did we fast forward to string bikinis, songs
(00:22):
and speedos? Yeah, expeedoes. Sorry, but I'm Patty Steel feeling
good about skin. That's next on the backstory. Okay, personally,
I hate bathing suits unless your sports illustrated material. You're
always putting on your bathing suit for the first time
in the early season and asking yourself why it didn't
(00:44):
work out just a little bit harder, or why you
didn't buy a big, voluminous cover up. Anyway, I'm going
to tell you how the first bikini got its look
and its name, But first let's see how that evolution began,
where we were, how it changed we are at least
for now. These days, you go to the beach, you're
going to see a lot of naked flesh, right, but
(01:05):
you know we weren't always treated to a skin show.
I mean, swimming has been around for thousands of years.
Can you believe there are cave drawings that show people swimming.
Greeks and Romans actually swam, mostly in the nude or
in very skimpy outfits. Fast forward, and the problem is
showing more of your body, dripping wet goes in and
out of style, and for the folks who do want
(01:28):
to take a refreshing dip, bathing suits get bulkier and
more constricting. In fact, the more conservative people got about
showing their bodies, the more swimming became kind of unpopular.
In the seventeen hundreds, what they called sea bathing became
red hot. Physicians decided there was a lot of health
benefit to taking a dip in the sea for both
(01:49):
women and men. But here's the thing. Complete immersion was
a no no, particularly for women, since it made them
seem unfeminine. So to lightly dip in women would wear loose,
open linen bathing gowns very much like a kaftan or
nightgown with elbow length sleeves. It sounds awful, but remember
(02:10):
this back in their day. The clothing that they wore
was corseted with layers of petticoats and skirts and hats
and all kinds of stuff. So these bathing gowns were
way more comfortable at Mount Vernon. In fact, Washington's home
in Virginia, you can actually see Martha Washington's blue and
white striped bathing gown or little checks on it. Actually,
(02:32):
it has led weight sewn into the hem to keep
it from floating up in the water and exposing those
fabulous Martha thighs. She was known to wear it on
her many trips to the famous mineral springs in Berkeley Springs,
West Virginia. But the eighteen hundreds saw the rise of
Victorian standards of modesty, which made it even tougher to
(02:52):
get wet and maintain your modesty. It's the late eighteen
hundreds and now women's bathing suits are made of wool
or flannel. These things weigh as much as twenty pounds
and that's all. They're still dry. They have a jacket top,
a skirt with again those lead weights in the hem
to keep them from floating up. But they also wear
pandaloons that come to the mid calf stockings all the
(03:14):
way up in swim boots that lace up to your knees. Finally,
there's a huge brimmed hat or hood, so no one
sees your wet face or even recognizes you. So much
for back to nature, right, So a well mannered lady
heads to the beach with her regular daytime long dress, jacket, corset, petticoat, stockings, hats, gloves,
and parasols. Not to mention her bustle, because in those days,
(03:38):
a little tiny waist in a big butt, we're all
the rage, kind of the first iteration of Jlo or
the Kardashians. Once she arrives at the beach, she heads
to this contraption that looks like a cabana on wheels.
It's called a bathing machine. You can actually google it
and see picks of these things lined up on the shore. Anyway,
she gets in, changes into her big, heavy bathing seita,
(04:00):
and then she and the machine are pulled by horse
or human out into the water. Once in the surf,
the doors on the ocean side open wide, shielding her
from guys down the beach trying to sneak a peek.
She's helped down some small steps into the water. Now
she's ready for that refreshing swim as long as she
doesn't mind being tied to the cabana by a rope
(04:22):
while wearing thirty pounds of soaking wet wool got to
keep her from getting carried out to sea. Right, and
by the way, all of these suits were like really
dark in color because that way you couldn't tell if
you did see her whether she was wet or dry. Anyway,
she paddles around for a little bit, then she's helped
back into the bathing machine, where she towels off and
has to get dressed once more into her heavy day clothes.
(04:45):
It sounds really exhausting. I think I'd need another swim
after that. No, but how did we get from there
to hear in our string bikinis and thongs. Well, we
head to the nineteen twenties when women began wanting more freedom,
shorter hair, shorter dresses, pants, for god's sakes, cigarettes and
any drinks of the gin, and that female independence kind
(05:06):
of changes everything. Bathing suits still made of wool, but
a thinner wool jersey are either one piece or have
a long tank top that pulls down over long shorts
that go past the mid thigh, and they're sleeveless and clinging.
Early on, a few women get arrested for wearing them,
even well known athletes. They make the older generation kind
(05:27):
of nuts, but the design finally allows women to actually
swim and allows other people to get a look at
the shape of a woman's body. One famous female swimmer,
Annette Kellerman, was actual perform for the British royal family,
but they said not in her new fangled bathing suit
because it showed the bottom half of her legs. She
redesigned her competition bathing suit to please the palace by
(05:50):
sowing long black stockings to the legs. Athletes today say
that being comfortable in your uniform, whatever sport you're in,
makes you feel better about yourself and allows you to
perform at your best. So that's what women begin to
feel like with these new, skimpier bathing suits. Now it's
the late nineteen thirties and the era of wool bathing
suits is over, when rayon or something called elastic cotton
(06:14):
replaces all that scratchy, saggy wet wool. But here's the
real kicker. World War II is on the horizon and
the government, trying to save resources, actually orders a ten
percent reduction in the amount of fabric ues to make
women's already much skimpier bathing suits than their mom's. War Yeah,
put the pieces together and we can actually thank the
(06:36):
government for the evolution of the thong. Well sort of.
On top of that, all that nakedness makes women forget
their devotion to protected pale skin and begin to go
after a really fabulous golden tan. That leads to even
smaller bathing suits to catch more rays. Now it's a
post war world. As women, we're a lot more comfortable
(06:57):
with our sexuality and more interested in sharing what we've got.
But the biggest shock for the public, yikes, the exposure
of the belly button, which wasn't allowed to be shown
on TV. Believe this until nineteen eighty three, so it
took some nudging. A designer in Paris came up with
the first official bikini in nineteen forty six. You can
(07:18):
google it. It actually looks like something you'd see on
the beach today. The problem is he can't find a
model willing to show it off, so he winds up
hiring a young woman who was a topless showgirl in Paris,
and he invites a ton of pop ROSSI to come
take photos by a big public pool there. He names
his little bits of fabric the Bikini Why because the
(07:39):
unveiling came just days after a big test of an
atomic bomb in the South Pacific in the Bikini Atoll,
and he says it's a fitting name for this bomb show.
It goes viral, of course, what a marketing guy. Anyway,
it's a huge deal and the eighteen year old stripper
gets fifty thousand fan letters, of course, mostly from god guys.
(08:00):
But unlike those crazy bathing machines, the Bikini never went away.
Question is where do you think we're going to go next?
Hope you like the Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave
a review. I would love it if you'd subscribe or
follow for free to get new episodes delivered automatically, and
also feel free to DM me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
(08:22):
Steele and on Instagram reel Patty Steele Happy Memorial Day.
I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks,
the Elvis Durand Group and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer
is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new
(08:43):
episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out
to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram
at real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.
Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the
pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.
As we get ready for the summer season this Memorial
Day weekend, we have to revisit the history of bathing suits.
Why were women wearing things that looked like linen nightgowns
to swim in back in the seventeen hundreds. More importantly,
why did they slip into thirty pounds of wet wool
for a dip in the ocean just over a century ago?
And how did we fast forward to string bikinis, songs
(00:22):
and speedos? Yeah, expeedoes. Sorry, but I'm Patty Steel feeling
good about skin. That's next on the backstory. Okay, personally,
I hate bathing suits unless your sports illustrated material. You're
always putting on your bathing suit for the first time
in the early season and asking yourself why it didn't
(00:44):
work out just a little bit harder, or why you
didn't buy a big, voluminous cover up. Anyway, I'm going
to tell you how the first bikini got its look
and its name, But first let's see how that evolution began,
where we were, how it changed we are at least
for now. These days, you go to the beach, you're
going to see a lot of naked flesh, right, but
(01:05):
you know we weren't always treated to a skin show.
I mean, swimming has been around for thousands of years.
Can you believe there are cave drawings that show people swimming.
Greeks and Romans actually swam, mostly in the nude or
in very skimpy outfits. Fast forward, and the problem is
showing more of your body, dripping wet goes in and
out of style, and for the folks who do want
(01:28):
to take a refreshing dip, bathing suits get bulkier and
more constricting. In fact, the more conservative people got about
showing their bodies, the more swimming became kind of unpopular.
In the seventeen hundreds, what they called sea bathing became
red hot. Physicians decided there was a lot of health
benefit to taking a dip in the sea for both
(01:49):
women and men. But here's the thing. Complete immersion was
a no no, particularly for women, since it made them
seem unfeminine. So to lightly dip in women would wear loose,
open linen bathing gowns very much like a kaftan or
nightgown with elbow length sleeves. It sounds awful, but remember
(02:10):
this back in their day. The clothing that they wore
was corseted with layers of petticoats and skirts and hats
and all kinds of stuff. So these bathing gowns were
way more comfortable at Mount Vernon. In fact, Washington's home
in Virginia, you can actually see Martha Washington's blue and
white striped bathing gown or little checks on it. Actually,
(02:32):
it has led weight sewn into the hem to keep
it from floating up in the water and exposing those
fabulous Martha thighs. She was known to wear it on
her many trips to the famous mineral springs in Berkeley Springs,
West Virginia. But the eighteen hundreds saw the rise of
Victorian standards of modesty, which made it even tougher to
(02:52):
get wet and maintain your modesty. It's the late eighteen
hundreds and now women's bathing suits are made of wool
or flannel. These things weigh as much as twenty pounds
and that's all. They're still dry. They have a jacket top,
a skirt with again those lead weights in the hem
to keep them from floating up. But they also wear
pandaloons that come to the mid calf stockings all the
(03:14):
way up in swim boots that lace up to your knees. Finally,
there's a huge brimmed hat or hood, so no one
sees your wet face or even recognizes you. So much
for back to nature, right, So a well mannered lady
heads to the beach with her regular daytime long dress, jacket, corset, petticoat, stockings, hats, gloves,
and parasols. Not to mention her bustle, because in those days,
(03:38):
a little tiny waist in a big butt, we're all
the rage, kind of the first iteration of Jlo or
the Kardashians. Once she arrives at the beach, she heads
to this contraption that looks like a cabana on wheels.
It's called a bathing machine. You can actually google it
and see picks of these things lined up on the shore. Anyway,
she gets in, changes into her big, heavy bathing seita,
(04:00):
and then she and the machine are pulled by horse
or human out into the water. Once in the surf,
the doors on the ocean side open wide, shielding her
from guys down the beach trying to sneak a peek.
She's helped down some small steps into the water. Now
she's ready for that refreshing swim as long as she
doesn't mind being tied to the cabana by a rope
(04:22):
while wearing thirty pounds of soaking wet wool got to
keep her from getting carried out to sea. Right, and
by the way, all of these suits were like really
dark in color because that way you couldn't tell if
you did see her whether she was wet or dry. Anyway,
she paddles around for a little bit, then she's helped
back into the bathing machine, where she towels off and
has to get dressed once more into her heavy day clothes.
(04:45):
It sounds really exhausting. I think I'd need another swim
after that. No, but how did we get from there
to hear in our string bikinis and thongs. Well, we
head to the nineteen twenties when women began wanting more freedom,
shorter hair, shorter dresses, pants, for god's sakes, cigarettes and
any drinks of the gin, and that female independence kind
(05:06):
of changes everything. Bathing suits still made of wool, but
a thinner wool jersey are either one piece or have
a long tank top that pulls down over long shorts
that go past the mid thigh, and they're sleeveless and clinging.
Early on, a few women get arrested for wearing them,
even well known athletes. They make the older generation kind
(05:27):
of nuts, but the design finally allows women to actually
swim and allows other people to get a look at
the shape of a woman's body. One famous female swimmer,
Annette Kellerman, was actual perform for the British royal family,
but they said not in her new fangled bathing suit
because it showed the bottom half of her legs. She
redesigned her competition bathing suit to please the palace by
(05:50):
sowing long black stockings to the legs. Athletes today say
that being comfortable in your uniform, whatever sport you're in,
makes you feel better about yourself and allows you to
perform at your best. So that's what women begin to
feel like with these new, skimpier bathing suits. Now it's
the late nineteen thirties and the era of wool bathing
suits is over, when rayon or something called elastic cotton
(06:14):
replaces all that scratchy, saggy wet wool. But here's the
real kicker. World War II is on the horizon and
the government, trying to save resources, actually orders a ten
percent reduction in the amount of fabric ues to make
women's already much skimpier bathing suits than their mom's. War Yeah,
put the pieces together and we can actually thank the
(06:36):
government for the evolution of the thong. Well sort of.
On top of that, all that nakedness makes women forget
their devotion to protected pale skin and begin to go
after a really fabulous golden tan. That leads to even
smaller bathing suits to catch more rays. Now it's a
post war world. As women, we're a lot more comfortable
(06:57):
with our sexuality and more interested in sharing what we've got.
But the biggest shock for the public, yikes, the exposure
of the belly button, which wasn't allowed to be shown
on TV. Believe this until nineteen eighty three, so it
took some nudging. A designer in Paris came up with
the first official bikini in nineteen forty six. You can
(07:18):
google it. It actually looks like something you'd see on
the beach today. The problem is he can't find a
model willing to show it off, so he winds up
hiring a young woman who was a topless showgirl in Paris,
and he invites a ton of pop ROSSI to come
take photos by a big public pool there. He names
his little bits of fabric the Bikini Why because the
(07:39):
unveiling came just days after a big test of an
atomic bomb in the South Pacific in the Bikini Atoll,
and he says it's a fitting name for this bomb show.
It goes viral, of course, what a marketing guy. Anyway,
it's a huge deal and the eighteen year old stripper
gets fifty thousand fan letters, of course, mostly from god guys.
(08:00):
But unlike those crazy bathing machines, the Bikini never went away.
Question is where do you think we're going to go next?
Hope you like the Backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave
a review. I would love it if you'd subscribe or
follow for free to get new episodes delivered automatically, and
also feel free to DM me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
(08:22):
Steele and on Instagram reel Patty Steele Happy Memorial Day.
I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks,
the Elvis Durand Group and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer
is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new
(08:43):
episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out
to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram
at real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.
Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the
pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.
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