WEBVTT - FROM THE VAULT: Bikinis: Everything You Didn't Know 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.440 Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:12.360 Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:15.480 that brings you the secret histories, little known fascinating facts 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.720 and figures behind your favorite TV, movies, music, and more. 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:21.560 And I think today, for only the second time, maybe 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:24.160 after the Sonic episode, we are looking at a non 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:27.920 movie music TV piece of pop culture, although it might 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.520 have virtually any entry in those mediums, cannon beat for 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:33.240 the sheer scope of its influence. 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:36.199 That's right, folks, In honor of the official. 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:40.479 Start of summer, we are talking about bikinis. 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:44.000 Jordan. I feel like this point of. 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.959 Those show is usually where we talk about our personal 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:49.760 history with bikinis, and unless there's something I really don't 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:53.199 know about you, we might be ad a little bit 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:55.120 out of our depth here. I'm trying to keep this 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:59.280 as little like leering and creepy as possible. I'm really 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:01.760 cognitive off is like the old guy at the Nude 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:05.959 beach here. So I will say though that the kind 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:09.880 of fifties sixties like beach blanket bingo era of pop 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:12.840 culture bikini influence is probably up your alley. 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:13.080 Right. 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:15.399 Oh yeah, no, I really appreciate you adding a dose 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:17.959 of kitchen into this episode. I'm really excited to get 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.319 to the California myth and I'll keep my. 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:23.039 Mic love references to a minimum, but. 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:24.760 There will be Yeah, a lot, a lot of beach 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:27.679 boys talking this episode that I'm excited about. But yeah, 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:28.880 I mean, you're right. This is the part of the 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.120 show where we talk about our personal experience with a 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:34.800 given topic. But in this case, you're right. Our experience 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:38.640 is fairly limited, and mine's fairly limited outside of Frankie 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.959 in Anette movies. But yeah, now that it's after Memorial Day, 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:44.080 it's the unofficial start of summer, I thought this could 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:46.280 be definitely a fun tangent to go down. 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:47.160 Yeah. 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:49.440 So you know, I'm not particularly well versed in the 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:52.639 history of fashion or anything, but I do remember having 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:57.400 that Raquel Welch in One Million Year's BC poster burned 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:01.680 into my skull like the hot Metal talisman gets burned 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:05.360 into the Nazis hand in the first Dadiana Jones first 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:05.760 time I. 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:07.600 Saw a classic, Yeah, wait, where did you see this? 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.400 I feel like Spencer's Gifts in the Capital City, in 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:15.280 the Capital City Mall in camp Hill, Pa. Baby, So 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:19.640 much of my formative experience was done like timidly venturing 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:22.040 into the hot topic and Spencer's gifts, and just like 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.120 surreptitiously taking notes on the stuff that I saw there 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:26.320 that I thought was transgressive. 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:29.160 I mean, and this is interesting because that so many 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:30.760 of the things that I learned about as a kid 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:34.040 were from like Old Time Life, nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:35.919 coffee table books, which is why I saw a poster 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.160 for the first time too. I think this says a 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:38.840 lot about. 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.320 Each of us so folks, from the weird influence of 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.000 the atomic bomb on this particular style of swimwear, to 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:48.800 how backyard pool culture fueled the boom, to what Emily 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:50.359 Post said about the bikini. 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:53.440 Here's everything you didn't know about bikinis. 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:55.800 Wow. 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.359 Starting off, the bikini is not actually the first two 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:05.679 piece swimwear and design. Yes, while the Romans did a 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:08.520 great many things in the buff, including swim there are 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.480 murals that show Roman women wearing wood is basically a 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:15.000 bikini like a rap style bandou bra and briefs. But 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:18.160 they also have great, many artistic depictions of everybody being 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:23.160 naked in bathhouses. Nudity was much less prohibited when you 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:26.760 were playing around in the water for centuries because swimming 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:28.760 was limited to people who lived there. 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:30.239 You were not. 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:32.680 That's a really interesting point. I hadn't thought about. What 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:34.720 did They have a lot of pools in major cities 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:37.280 though too. But I guess if you're just in some 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:39.480 kind of agricultural community, Yeah, yeah. 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.119 You're not taking the oxen and cart and family down 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:44.520 to the beach for a day because half of you would. 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:45.880 Die down the shore. 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.160 Yeah, there's no down the shore in Rome. But yeah, 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:53.000 it's interesting that this prudishness around swimming is not part 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:56.280 of ancient society because they have all of this rich 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:01.960 mythology of like water related gods and nymphs and so 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:04.200 on and so forth. So like you don't really see 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:07.040 this prudishness around public bathing start to take root basically 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:07.960 until the Middle Ages. 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:09.800 Yeah, it's really interesting. 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.160 I mean, there are paintings in mosaics dating back to 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:16.560 five thousand, six hundred BC in the ancient settlement of 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:20.479 Ittalia Hook I'll just pretend that's the right way to 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.119 say that it's in present day Turkey, and it shows 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.880 their goddesses wearing two piece swimming style outfits and they're 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:31.120 surviving Minoan paintings from sixteen hundred BC that show similar 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:33.720 swimsuits that look like something out of a Frankie in 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:34.360 a net movie. 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:36.680 Basically, it's really strange how that style. 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.160 It's something that you see in paintings and mosaics that 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:41.719 are thousands of years old. And there's also an ancient 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:45.880 Sicilian villa from roughly two hundred and fifty a d so, 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:48.320 you know, almost two thousand years ago, which features a 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:52.720 mosaic of women playing sports wearing what we're called subligar 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:57.480 and strophium, which acted as bottom and top coverings respectively. 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:01.000 So yes, this has quite the history, but it was 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.200 the medieval period that really made a change here, probably 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:05.400 due to the fact that this is the classic era 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:09.760 of hand drawn maps with weird beasts on them that 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:13.640 just said, here be monsters. So like, you know, if 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.320 that's your mass media, you're probably a little bit scared 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:17.400 off of deep water. 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:19.680 It was also I think i'll result of the Black 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.200 Plague too, that was bathing and swimming were thoughts to 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:25.840 spread disease. So this was definitely a dark age not 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.599 only for knowledge but for swimming attire because it wasn't 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.240 really needed because people weren't swimming that much the real 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:32.520 tragedy of the Dark Ages. 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.160 Yeah, and this starts to change in the seventeen hundreds 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:37.960 when it becomes considered healthy and beneficial to just kind 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:41.320 of sort of submerge yourself in the oceans or hot springs. 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:43.640 They didn't really have like a concept of swimming as 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.320 like a dedicated healthy athletic activity. They were just like 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:48.800 just go in it, sort of yeah, be in it, 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:49.760 it'll be good for you. 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:53.440 Yeah, there's the baths in Saratoga, there's the baths in Bath, England, 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:55.440 the Minna. There are a lot of these these kind 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:58.400 of health spas cropping up all over the world. 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:00.440 Like yeah, yeah, you said you just sort of. 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:03.520 Like taking what was the expression, taking the waters? Taking 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:04.120 the waters? 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:06.919 Yes, yes, And in fact it would take one of 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:11.760 our nation's horniest founding fathers, Benson and Franklin, huge proponent 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.599 of swimming and at one point contemplated setting up a 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:15.760 school for it in London. 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:17.839 I'm guessing because as you said, he was a randy 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:20.120 old man who was rumored to have died of syphilis. 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:22.760 But you know, the swimwear around this time, if you 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.359 can even call it, that was just it's some of 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:28.000 these photos are ridiculous. Makes me lament not for the 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:30.279 first time that there isn't an audio or a visual 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:33.240 component to this podcast, because these are hilarious. It's just 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:37.880 like these huge shifts like moo moos, but they're made from. 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:40.640 Like woola material I could imagine. 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.080 Yeah, And they would weigh the hem downs to keep 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:45.120 them from floating up. 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:48.400 Oh yeah, I mean they would stick actual like lead 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.119 weights and sow them into the bottom. And as you mentioned, 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:54.839 these swimming garments were heavy. I mean they weighed over 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.479 twenty pounds and as a result, up until like the 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.039 twentieth century, women traditionally swam and I say that in 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:04.040 quotes by holding onto a rope attached to a buoy, 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:06.719 because with their swim outfits were so heavy that they 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:08.240 would just sink like a stone. 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:12.520 There's this other thing called swimming machines that I thought 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.040 were really interesting, which are these like they look like sheds, 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:17.680 like suburban gardening sheds that you would keep the mower 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:19.920 or the wheelbarro room. They're on wheels and they just 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.600 roll them into the ocean and women go into them 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.560 and kind of cavort around inside of them. Then they 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:28.120 get wheeled back out of the ocean. 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:28.880 Those were old. 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:31.840 Those were invented by quankers in like the seventeen fifties, 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.360 and they had this hole that you would jump through 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:38.880 into the ocean. And they called this hole a modesty tunnel, which. 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:40.400 Oh, modesty tunnel. 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:42.920 That takes me back to my weekend in Acapulco, Hell, 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:47.560 the eighteen hundred. It's big century for swimmers. You see 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.560 railroads in the eighteen twenties, I believe, and other advances 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:55.240 in personal transportation mean that people can now go down 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:57.840 the shore or to the lake or what have you. 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.600 It's just people are more mobile on a bit your scale. 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:02.680 And then this is where you start to see the 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.720 bloomer suits, which are the big puffy skirts over the 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:10.120 big puffy pants. Again, just so much, so much fabric. 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:12.480 How did people not drown in these? 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:13.920 I know? It's really wild. 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:19.280 Swimming in a parachute, yes, the parachute pants even it's 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:21.840 like the EMC hammer pans. There were laws passed at 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:24.080 the turn of the century that required all women in 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.000 bathing suits to wear stockings, which was kind of a 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:30.360 double blind because women were also not allowed to wear pants. 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:32.840 But then around the turn of the nineteenth century, swimming 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:36.240 becomes both an intercollegiate and Olympic sport, which kind of 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:38.920 drives up its popularity, and a decade or so after that, 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:42.400 there's this really interesting figure. She's an Australian swimmer named 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:46.560 Annette Kellerman, and she created and successfully markets her own 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.760 swimsuit that's based on kind of the what I would 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:52.640 describe as the old timey wrestler like this Andre the 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.880 giant singlet sort of thing that men were wearing, just 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:58.760 like a tank top merged with shorts. I guess is 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:00.840 that technically also a row I don't know. 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.120 The version I saw had full sleeves that went down 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:06.920 your wrists and leggings that went down to her feet. 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:09.760 But because it was form fitting, she was arrested for 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:12.520 wearing it on a Massachusetts beach in nineteen oh seven 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:16.120 and charged with indecent exposure, despite the fact that she 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:20.200 wasn't exposed outside of her hands and head, and this 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:22.840 became a fairly high profile legal case at the time, 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.760 which she ultimately won, setting the precedent for women's swimwear 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.600 that actually lent itself to swimming and not just like 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:31.520 trying not to sing. 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:37.880 Swimming bags. Yeah. Yeah, Net Kellerman is such a fascinating person. 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:39.920 Yeah, she wore leg brace as a child when she 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.160 was growing up in Australia, and she took up swimming 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:44.880 to strengthen them. Became one of the first women to 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:48.120 train swim the English Channel at the age of just nineteen, 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:52.400 and she wrote a book about swimming. She helped popularize 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.080 synchronized swimming as a sport. And she was even the 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.280 first woman to appear nude in a Hollywood film, which 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.360 is nineteen Sixteen's a Daughter of the Gods. She's got 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:02.080 kind of the venus on the shell situation. 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:06.000 This movie was reportedly the first million dollar film ever produced. 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:08.760 But like so many early films, no copies are known 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:12.120 to exist and it's now considered lost. Isn't there like 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:15.040 a huge amount of those films that are lost. Oh yeah, 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:16.840 I mean a lot of it was between the film 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:21.520 just degrading and just fires and stuff just straight up 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:23.920 not being kept because people didn't really have much of 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:26.319 an eye towards saving things for posterity at this time. Yeah, 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:28.920 there's a lot of his all Wikipedia entry un lost 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:31.720 films of you know, historical significance, and that's a big one. 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:33.040 Yeh. Bummer. 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:37.200 But despite Net's efforts, women were still subject to weird 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.840 laws around bathing suits. There are photos out there of 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.240 actual swimsuit police going around on the beach with like 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:47.000 a whistle and a badge and a ruler measuring the 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:48.720 length of these women's suits to make sure that they 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:49.360 were in order. 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:52.560 But women were not the only ones subject to draconian, 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:56.600 puritanical laws about swimwear. In most states, it was illegal 0:10:56.640 --> 0:11:00.120 for men to be topless until nineteen thirty seven, and 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.320 lawmakers in Atlantic City hell out even longer, saying that 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.199 they didn't want And this is a quote, gorillas on 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:06.920 our beaches. 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.480 That's got to be racist. I assume that's a deeply 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:11.560 racist sentiment. 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:13.439 It's offensive on multiple levels. 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:17.800 Yeah, as with most things, we have Smut to thank 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:22.080 for knocking down boundaries. Burlesque, which is I believe, one 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:24.839 of like two native art forms that are actually native 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:26.079 to the to the Americas. 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:28.840 It's like jazz and the blues and burlesque. 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:31.920 Really, I would have assumed that was like French Vaudeville. 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:34.240 I could see being Oh, I guess that's musical, because yeah, 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:34.920 Vaudeville has. 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.960 Its roots of music hall. Burlesque I believe is a 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:40.760 holy American invention, Jamie, can we get a fact check 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:41.000 on that? 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:48.240 Number one, of course, jazz and burlesque. I mean, I'm 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:50.679 happy to assume that those are the two only American 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:55.440 art forms exactly like you know, fast food. Yeah, it 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:56.600 makes it's all scans. 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:01.560 Yeah, so burlesque, obviously they're in to some degree of nudity, 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:05.120 but vaudeville performers too, like you know, Harry Houdini around 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.160 this time was pretty frequently seen shirtless because he was 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:11.000 submerged in water and heavy chains and all that. And 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:13.160 then there's a nineteen twenty nine film Man with a 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:15.960 movie camera that showed women topless and in two piece 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:18.000 bathing suits that would expose their mid drifts. 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.040 This isn't strictly about bikinis. But there's this great story 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:25.800 about the New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, from whom you know, 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.800 LaGuardia Airport takes its name, and there's a musical about him, 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:31.920 very famous New York mayor. He supposedly, I mean, this 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.559 is kind of apocryphal, jump started the development of the 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:38.160 thong in nineteen thirty nine because the city was hosting 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:40.320 the World's Fair at the time, and he wanted New 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:43.880 York's dancers and striptease artists to be slightly more clothed. 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:46.600 And the result of this sort of mayorial edict was 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:49.479 to develop the thong good for LaGuardia. 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:52.320 So moving into the nineteen thirties, there are a couple 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.120 of things that happened. There are advances in fabric technology. 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.040 We've got DuPont to think for that. I believe who 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.560 invented nylon palm. 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:03.080 That might have been dal, that might have been Dow. 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:09.080 Actually, the two sides of American culture nudity and horrific violence. 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.560 So you basically stop making bathing suits out of like 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:17.760 heavy flannel and cotton and then all this other stuff, 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:22.360 and two men stop covering up their chests while they're 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:26.319 swimming or competing in sports, which helps us normalize increasing 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:30.079 levels of nudity on the national stage. It's interesting because 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:32.200 the other big development that happens around this time, and 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:34.520 I see Coco Chanell's name attached to this, is making 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:37.680 tans fashionable. You know, previously, the reason that you have 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.520 all of these alabaster women and portrayals of antiquity was 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:43.320 because if you had tanem and you were outside laboring 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:45.040 like a disgusting peasant. 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:47.559 And therefore if you were pure. 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:50.360 White as the driven snow, it meant you were inside 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.400 at all times, and therefore of a higher financial cast. 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:55.560 And that's even why people would powder their face and 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:57.440 powder their wigs, trying to look as pale and as 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:00.439 untouched by the sun as possible. But that starts to change. 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.000 And so one of the ways in which you showed 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.680 that you had money now was by traveling and by 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.760 going on holiday. And this is where we get the 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:13.839 backless swimsuit, because the backless swimsuit exposed an even greater 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.920 swath of your you know, tanned, tanned skin, and so 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.800 that's one of the first shots across the bow of 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:27.360 increased swimsuit skimpiness. And so in nineteen thirty two you 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:31.080 have a French designer named Madeleine Vione who designed evening 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.760 gown with an exposed mid drift. And obviously we owe 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:35.640 a huge debt to Busby Berkeley. 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:36.120 And those films. 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.479 The nineteen thirty two One Foot Light Parade showed bikinis, 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:43.120 as did Dorothy Lemore's The Hurricane in nineteen thirty seven. 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:45.640 But this is all pre Hayze code so Jordan talked 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:47.880 to us a little bit about the Haze Code, and 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:49.160 the Hayes Code was put. 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:51.720 In place, I believe in the late or mid thirties 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:54.160 to the mid fifties, and it was kind of like 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:56.960 the Ten Commandments of filmmaking, like things that you were 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:00.840 not allowed to show, and they were very strict and 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.680 usually pretty ridiculous. I mean, I don't think this is 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:05.760 strictly tied to the Hayes Code, but the kind of 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.400 thing where like on I Love Lucy, where Ricky and 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:12.560 Lucy were shown in separate beds and they weren't allowed 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.560 to say like pregnant and had to say expecting and 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:19.440 things like that. Things were very puritanical, rigid code of 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:21.440 what you could and could not show in a film. 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:24.160 But prior to this Hayes Code, movies from the twenties 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:26.440 and thirties are actually in a lot of cases it's 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.560 surprisingly very liberal in terms of their you know, what 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.040 they showed in terms of sex and fashion and language. 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:32.960 It's really interesting. 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:38.000 The actress Dolores del Rio holds the title the first 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.760 major star to wear a two piece swimsuit on screen, 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:43.880 in the nineteen thirty three film Flying Down to Rio. 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.560 Chorus girls also chorus girls at the time are obviously 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:51.280 sort of exempt from this rule their fashionedd bikini style outfits. 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:53.800 But the whole thing is like navels, right, like you 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.040 have to cover navels. That's the Barbara Eden thing. 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:58.160 Yeah, that was the thing I guess, as you said, 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:00.680 into the sixties with Barbariden and Idri of Genie. I 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:04.600 think Share was like the first. I think she might 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:08.600 have been the first person on network TV to do that. 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:11.600 I kind of love her. God bless her. She's broken 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.440 down so many barriers Share she really truly has. 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:18.200 So there's an American designer named Claire mccardal who brings 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.760 out a side cut bathing suit in nineteen thirty five. 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:22.600 You know, we're getting the back list, we're getting the 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.000 sides cut out, so we're edging closer towards the bikini. 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:27.920 And that's in nineteen thirty five. As I said, and Jordan, 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:29.960 you have an interesting fact here. 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:33.240 Yeah, this is just something really pretty hilarious that I 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:36.040 came across a few months before the bikini was unveiled. 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:37.720 In nineteen forty six, there was. 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:42.080 Something called the Midnight Booie and this was advertised in 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:46.520 like Life magazine and Vogue, And it was manufactured by 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:48.640 the Duchess Royal Company. And it was a two piece 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:52.280 suit with a cork buckle attached across the bottom and 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.280 if the wearer wanted to remove it while swimming, they 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:58.040 could tie the top to the buckle and allow both 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:02.440 parts to float while you splashed around swimming in the buff. 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:05.800 And it was advertised in a December nineteen forty five 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.120 issue of Vogue. And the fact that it was advertising 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:10.119 Life magazine is pretty crazy to me because that's such 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:13.800 a mainstream publication. But the ad featured this priceless copy. 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:16.000 There's google it, you can see it. The name of 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.480 the suit. Of course, the Midnight booy suggests the nocturnal 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:25.159 conditions under which nude swimming is most agreeable. So that 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:28.439 I mean, yes, I'm filling a need in a market 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:30.440 there with some impressive. 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:31.960 I want to hear the radio ads for it where 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:38.160 they're like the Midnight Booie. 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:44.920 For all your nudebathing needs. 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:53.320 How often has this happened to you? Oh boy, We're 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:55.360 going to take a quick break, but we'll be right 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:57.680 back with more too much information In just. 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:11.520 A moment, Jordan wrote this header. I have to get 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:13.720 shout it out for him. The atomic bomb entered. The 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:19.760 atomic bomb and the Frenchman one of Asop's less popular fables. 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:23.600 So the important thing about all of these bikini precursors 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:26.119 and all of these different, you know, burlesque outfits and 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:28.679 all this stuff, is that they were usually pretty high cut. 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:32.159 They concealed the belly button. More of the butt is 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.440 actually concealed by them. We're not edging into g string territory. 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:39.840 But World War II curbs the production of fabrics across 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:43.680 the board, and because it was needed, among other things, 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.240 to make uniforms for the sick millions of men and 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.640 women who were serving sixteen million. And in nineteen forty two, 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:53.760 the United States War Production Board issues Regulation L eighty five, 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:56.880 which cuts the use of natural fibers and clothing and 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:59.920 mandates a ten percent reduction in the amount of fat 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.479 in women's beach where So the government literally comes in 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:06.160 and says, your bathing suits have to be skinny, Johnny, 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:08.760 make the bathing suit skimpia. It's gonna help us win 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:11.080 the wall twenty three Scando. Then, of course, we dropped 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:17.160 the atomic bomb a humanitarian moment, not a humanitarian moment, 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:21.200 a low point in humanity, I should say, Jordan, take 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:22.120 us into the Frenchman. 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:24.400 Yes, this brings us to my favorite part of this episode, 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:26.440 which is the arms race, really the only kind of 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.159 arms race I can get behind, between two Frenchmen to 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:33.200 create the smallest, most scandalous swimsuit the world has ever known. 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:37.320 A very noble pursuit, especially coming after I'll just talk 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.800 about the atom bomb. There was a Frenchman named Jacques 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:45.000 Heim who was apparently an active member of the French 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.879 resistance during World War Two, and he created a two 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.959 piece design that he called the Atom but it failed 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.240 to catch on. But the atom is a great name 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:55.600 for a small swimsuit because at the time that was 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:58.920 the smallest unit of matter then known to exist. Tiny suit, 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.439 tiny particle. Very clever. I just want to savor that 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:05.919