It wasn't the weight of the wool, it was its properties: wool is the
only fiber that holds heat even while wet. In the 19th c, you really
_could_ "catch your death of cold," or so they believed. Up til the
1920s, most bathing suits were woolen.
== Marjorie Wilser
=:=:=:Three Toad Press:=:=:=
"Learn to laugh at yourself and you will never lack for amusement." --MW
http://3toad.blogspot.com/
On Jan 14, 2010, at 10:29 PM, Sharon Collier wrote:
I have heard that , in water, clothes do not weigh any more than
when dry.
It is after you get out that you feel the weight of the water.
Clothes do
create drag, though.
-----Original Message-----
From: h-costume-boun...@indra.com [mailto:h-costume-
boun...@indra.com] On
Behalf Of Lynn Downward
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 6:08 PM
To: Historical Costume
Subject: Re: [h-cost] 1920s Men's bathing suit pattern
I've seen one too, in San Francisco. It was one that was rented at
Sutro
Baths, the large pool near Ocean Beach from the 1870s until the
1920s, I
believe. There were several separate pools in the complex
overlooking Seal
Rock and men could rent a heavy swim suit for the day. I have no
idea how
they cleaned them. Yick.
At any rate, the one I saw was heavy as AlbertCat said, heavy like a
sweater. It weighed, dry, about the same as a heavy winter sweater.
I can't
imagine how heavy they were wet, but there are photographs of swarms
of men
in identical swimsuits on the edge of the pools. The one I saw also
had the
woven cotton underwear sewn into the bottom.
LynnD
On 1/14/10, albert...@aol.com <albert...@aol.com> wrote:
just a bit heavier than T-shirt fabric.
****************
The two real one piece tank top vintage bathing suits for men I found
at a flea market were knit but sweater weight (perhaps a bit denser,
tighter stitch than a sweater). They also had a woven cotton
underwear- like thing sewn into the bottom part. One was navy with a
wide white stripe running horizontally at chest level. The other was
black. Both were wool.
Wool, y'know, will still keep one warm when wet. And sometime in the
1870's I believe it was considered a healthy thing to break into a
sweat. Thus, a "sweater" was proper attire for tennis and the like.
These ideas linger into the 20th century.
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