History of Swimsuits

The unofficial start of summer began yesterday. Time to dig out that swimwear and be glad--be very glad--you don't swim during the Victorian era.

Nothing identifies the history of cultural modesty more than swimwear. But you might be surprised to learn that for most of history people, men and women, swam in the nude or stripped down to their underwear.

Bath clubs in ancient Roman featured nude swimming. But by the middle ages, public summing was discouraged or outlawed altogether.

Since then, swimwear has become increasingly more scanty and form fitting.

Most of my writing takes place during the 18th and 19th century, so I've run across some interesting tidbits regarding clothing. For example, these are the rules for public Baths for men, written in 1737:

"No male person above the age of ten years shall at any time hereafter go into any Bath within the city by day or night without a pair of drawers and a waistcoat on their bodies."

And for females: "No female person shall at any time hereafter go into a Bath by day or night without a decent shift on their bodies."

Restrictions grew for women in particular until they had to be covered from head "hats" to toes "shoes" during the Victorial era.

These restrictions applied to American women too. This is their swimsuit of the 1870s.


By the turn of the century, the tide had turned.
The lady below is from the Flapper period.

It was the Olympics that changed swimsuits into more practical designs, because, obviously, the cumbersome, heavy clothing restricted competitive swimming.

As with most of fashion, swimsuit design moved from one extreme to another. Before WWII, beaches might have a swimsuit inspector.  Now, many of the suits of today come as close to nude as possible. So we may have come full circle. Personally I think the swimsuits of the 1940s and 1950s were practical and modest.

(Photo credit: allthat'sinteresting.com)


I've never been the bikini type, and now I don't have the figure for one, so my swimsuit this year is a one-piece that holds everything together.

What about you?

The Gilded Age

Chances are if you follow this blog you are a reader or writer of genre fiction. Did you know the most popular era of historical fiction is the Gilded Age, the late 1800s? Maybe because it was a period of great change in history—social, economic, and spiritual. Besides, the roots of our modern culture sprouted during that turbulent time.

After the civil war, industrialization exploded in a frenzy of inventions, machines, and transportation. While we often think of this as being the age of wealth with Carnegie, Morgan, and Rockefeller at the top, this wealth created enough decent jobs to create an expansive middle class. Jobs grew so fast, immigrants were welcomed by the shiploads.

Across the sea, Queen Victoria set the agenda for morality, and her subjects became very creative in bending the rules. Appearances became more important than reality.

The Victorians demanded, without exception, elaborate decoration. Hence, the gilded age. Rich detail was everywhere, from the scrollwork of furniture, to wallpaper, to female attire. They couldn’t get enough embellishment on dresses, but the women seemed happy to carry around ten to twelve pounds of clothing.

Thankfully, that’s gone out of style.

Unfortunately, one thing that hasn’t gone out of style is political corruption. Politicians of the late 1800s didn’t even pretend. Party bosses called the shots in most of the big cities, not caring what the press called them.  After controlling national politics since the civil war, Republicans were decimated in the 1884 election. But waiting in the wings was a bombastic man who took advantage of the situation and whose favorite word was bully.

There was much good to come out of the gilded age. Industry, medicine and science advanced rapidly, laying the foundations of life as we know it today, but it had a dark underbelly as well. Greed and corruption are easy to see, but a greater threat to Christianity was Darwinism which got a foothold in the colleges of the day. I’m sure the good people of that era would have been surprised to know at least half of the U.S. population today are secular humanists. The number is probably much larger in Europe where the great churches stand empty.

The setting for my first full-length novel to be released January 7, is smack-dab in the middle of the gilded age. I’m happy to announce it right here, and I pray everyone has a wonderful, happy New Year in 2016. Just think, it's only been a little over one hundred years since the gilded age. 

An idealistic librarian and a troubled cattle baron fight wickedness in high places in 1884 Nebraska.

Carianne Barlow never expected to leave her comfortable Philadelphia townhouse and travel to the wild-west, but when she inherits a fortune, conditions are attached. She must carry out her grandmother’s vision of a western culture center anchored by a library to rival those of the east. Such an undertaking requires political support, and no one is more influential than Rhyan Cason, a handsome cattle baron with the reputation of hardened businessman and rabble rousing lobbyist with a preference for the ladies. Carianne gets on the westbound train with no thought of the treacherous world awaiting her in the little prairie town near Rhyan’s sprawling ranch.

When Rhyan asks her to catalog his library, Carianne jumps at the chance without considering the ramifications. She rejects any romantic notions. Rhyan is known to be a heart-breaker, and his Darwinist views don't set well with her Christian beliefs. But they are thrown together when events take a dangerous turn, and menacing undercurrents run through the town.

Then Carianne learns too late Rhyan is pursued by a sinister enemy determined to destroy everything he cares for, including her. As they get closer to exposing the adversary, they realize he—or she—wants them both dead.

When Hats Defined an Era

Here’s an interesting tid-bit. Ladies of the nineteenth century wouldn’t have considered themselves properly dressed to go in public without a hat. 

That sounds ridiculous in this age of casual dress, but on a bad hair day I wish hats were back in fashion. Alas, wearing a hat today anywhere except at the beach or garden will get you labeled strange. Fashion hats disappeared in the 1960s in that hole that ate up nearly everything in genteel culture.

The Victorian era has always been my favorite to read and write about, and one of the reasons is the fashion. Like nearly everything about that time, fashion was over-the-top, starting with the hat. The basic hat was simple—narrow, flexible brim; short, flat top—meant to be worn atop an elaborate hair-do, since it was two sizes too small to fit the head. The proper Victorian lady dressed it up with fabric, feathers, flowers, birds, nests, netting, ribbon, lace, just about anything she could find.  And the more the better.

I love crafts of all kinds, but making a Victorian hat has never been on my bucket list.

Last month I blogged about how I was sewing an 1880s costume for a photoshoot. Well, I decided it needed a steampunk hat, which is surprisingly well known in pop culture, and lots of patterns were available. Here's the layout. Three pieces--brim, curved cylinder side, and crown.

Steampunk is so named for the sci-fi genre emphasizing the steam-powered machinery and industry of the era.

My genre is western romance, not steampunk, but the hat fits the Victorian era. Imagine a man’s top hat with half of the top chopped off and made small enough to fit a six-year-old. My pattern was simple. Just cut two of each piece and glue together, using wire for shaping. Mine is made of canvas, though something called Buckram is recommended.

I decided to keep my decoration simple. This is the finished hat.

Though I like Victorian fashion, I’m a casual dresser. I see no need for a hat except to protect my head from the sun. While the dress of a by-gone era is an interesting topic, the idea of actually wearing those elaborate dresses isn’t something I’d like to do.

But I can’t help thinking that maybe we’re getting too casual. People are going to the grocery store in their pajamas these days.

It isn’t only fashion that’s gotten too casual. Behavior once considered scandalous is now accepted. Hopefully, we’ll never forget that propriety in dress and everything else is not determined by the mores of the day, but by the eternal word of God.

Do you like hats?

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Sewing Historical

Welcome to this fine Woven Wednesday. I’d like to introduce you to Adela, a young lady who had the unique opportunity of attending Harvard College during the early 1880s, along with three friends who shared a bond closer than sisters. Adela and two of her friends become disillusioned with the elite society of Cambridge for different reasons and travel west to become mail-order brides.

I know all this because I’m the author of their story. And I told her to look apprehensive.

Hundreds of mail-order bride stories have been written, and I’ve read most of them. But my writing experience has been different in that I may one of the few authors who get the chance to make the heroine’s dress. Most probably wouldn't want to.

When I prepared to share my vision for the covers with the designer, I started following the historical sewing blogs. Pictures just weren’t enough. I wanted to make one of those outfits—or three.

The trouble was I hadn’t sewed in years. When I was young, I made all my clothes, and my daughter didn’t get a store-bought dress until she was about ten. But life took up my time, and even when my granddaughter came along, I just didn’t have the passion.

Fortunately, my passion for writing spilled over into sewing, and before you knew it, I was gathering patterns and fabrics and notions. As you can tell, I chose pink for Adela, my brunette with dark brown eyes that have a way of making her intended lose his train of thought. 

The heroine of the second novella,  a curly-haired, blue-eyed blonde, will wear blue satin. The third novella will feature a green-eyed red-head, who’ll wear green print with emerald satin.

I let my heroines choose their dresses. Since Adela was going to be a farmer’s wife, she wanted her outfit to be understated. She chose the pink summer print cotton, the closest thing in her wardrobe to calico, and with little trim. It was normal for Victorian dresses to be greatly embellished. Fortunately for me, my heroines didn’t like too much embellishment. Fancy or not, these dresses take from ten to twelve yards of fabric, most of it in the overskirt.

I’m going to be sending the first pictures to the cover designer in a couple of weeks. I don’t know that any of these creations will be acceptable, but even if they don’t make the covers, I am going to be creating memes with them.

These photos were done for the blog, using a phone camera. We didn’t have time to get Adela’s hair up, as she would have insisted on before going out in public. And I didn’t have the all-important bustle finished when my model came over. That’s why it’s missing in the picture at right. Without the bustle, the back sags, and a Victorian woman would never let her posterior sag. 

Here’s what the bustle looks like. Just a fabric sack that can be shaped with a wire frame—or in my case, stuffed with fiberfill. My husband offered to model it, but I decided to spare you. Also pictured with the bustle is another piece of clothing essential to the Victorian lady, the corset. Would you believe the corset is sized according to the measurement you want to cinch it to, not the waist size? 

One thing hasn’t changed over the centuries; women’s clothing has always been designed more for appearance than men’s clothing. Shirts, pants and suits for men of the nineteenth century look much like today.

Do you think women care about their appearance more than men? Why or why not?

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