AN IDEAL BATHING DRESS.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2960, 10 August 1878, Page 4

AN IDEAL BATHING DRESS.

The primitive form of the bathingdress was a large, loose flannel gown, which enveloped the whole figure—when the wearer was ou dry land—and reached below her ankles. At that time prudery compounded with the lacerations of its feelings, caused by the exigencies of a surf toilet, by making the moist female form as ugly as possible—just as certain eminent female saints avo said to have disfigured their faces in order to turn their thoughts from earthly vanities. Tri thi3 respect the flannel was a complete success, since had Venus herself risen from the ocean in a bathing gown, she would have been mistaken for the godmother of the gods. Nevertheless, ■• it had one conspicuous fault. When in the water it had a way of expandiug and floating to the surface, whereby the wearer was made to resemble a blue cotton umbrella, with a curiously-carved ivory handle. For this reason it gradually fell into disrepute, and is now only met with on remote beaches, where it is still occasionally worn by angular school-teachers, who desire to strike terror into casual sharks.

The gown was succeeded by the blue flannel blouse and trousers, the most prominent fact in connection with which was their excessive ugliness. They had, moreover, the disadvantage of being extremely heavy when thoroughly water-soaked. As the unfortunate bather walked from the surf to her bathing house her heavy sand-laden skirt smote against her ankles with every step, as if Nature bore her a grudge for venturing to take liberties with the venerable ocean. In fact, the dress was as uncomfortable as it was ugly, and even had it been made of some material lighter and more fitted for the purpose than flannel—such, for instance as sheetlead or Brussels carpeting —it would still have been heavy ana awkward. Nevertheless, strict veracity compels thp admission that at rare intervals beauty triumphed over the bathing-dress, and at every sea-beach legends yet survive of some miraculous woman who was beautiful in spite of flannel blouse and trousers.

The brilliant discovery that a woman could bathe without making herself hideous was made by the ingenious women of France —the home of the opera bouffe. Ur doubtedly the style of dress which prevails on the opera bouffe stage suggested the pattern of bathing dress, which has this season become popular, and which marks the beginning of a new period in bathing dresses. The blouse has been superseded by a short-sleeved and low-necked garment closely fitted about a perforated corset — whatever that may be. The trousers have given place to what may be described as knickerbockers, supplemented with stockings of dazzling spl-ndour, and an additional garment, which is something between a short skirt and a broad ribbon, encircles the waist. The dress is completed bj; a pair of canvass shoes and a dainty hat, and instead of trass- , forming a Venus into a burlesqued Minerva, it justifies the plainest woman in inviting the lasses of the sea. That it will not only drive out the blouse and trousers, but utterly banish their prepes terous memory, niny be safely assumed. It fulfils all the conditions of an. ideal bathing dress, and a ceului\y hence painters, instead of representing angels as "winged women in cambric di*essing gowns, will paint them in bathing dresses, passing over the waves like a new species ot aquatic butterflies.-Ex.