Gilded Age Bathing Fashion

Larking about with a “ride” on the beach, two young women in their proper sea bathing attire.— Manners, Culture and Dress of the Best American Society detailed the fabric and shape of the garment, which “should be made of flannel.” A “gray tint” was advisable because “it does not soon fade and grow ugly from contact with salt water.” The “best” style was either a “loose sacque” or “yoke waist.” The dress was belted at the waist, and the skirt reached “mid way between the knee and the ankle.”

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At the Newport shoreline, Bailey’s Beach offered “a dip in the sea at the society bathing grounds on which the public were not permitted to trespass.” Guarded by a low wall, Bailey’s Beach, according to May Van Rensselaer, was "the favorite bathing beach of the fashionable world" Elizabeth Lehr called it “Newport's most exclusive club. A syndicate called the Spouting Rock Beach Association (aka Bailey’s Beach,) purchased the beach in the little cove in 1896, having constructed one hundred new oceanfront bathhouses and a pavilion was guarded by a “watchman in his gold-laced uniform” who “protected its sanctity from all interlopers” (“He knew every carriage on sight, fixed newcomers with an eagle eye, swooped down upon them and demanded their names.”) Those who did not have proper credentials were dispatched to Easton's Beach, "the Common Beach," as the habitués of Bailey's were wont to call it.

Some few ventured to swim, but a lady's bathing costume, when wet, almost nullified the effort. The apparel for Bailey's Beach (or any seashore of the Gilded Age) was better termed a “bathing dress.” Manners, Culture and Dress of the Best American Society detailed the fabric and shape of the garment, which “should be made of flannel.” A “gray tint” was advisable because “it does not soon fade and grow ugly from contact with salt water.” The “best” style was either a “loose sacque” or “yoke waist.” The dress was belted at the waist, and the skirt reached “mid way between the knee and the ankle.” Beneath this dress were “full trowsers” with the pant legs “gathered” into bands at each ankle. An “oilskin cap” was suggested “to protect the hair, which becomes harsh in salt water.” A pair of “socks the color of the dress complete the costume.” — From Cecelia Tichi, in “What Would Mrs. Astor Do?” 2018

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette, Modesty and Dress

Oh, the irony! She wears a bathing dress that shows her limbs half way up to the knee, and doesn't care who sees them; but in the evening, when at home, if her dress should expose the least bit of a striped stocking to the gaze of her most intimate friends, she would clutch it frantically and drag it down quicker than chain-lightening.

The Absence of Etiquette in the Water

It is astonishing to see how much a young lady becomes attached to a gentleman while in the water, who she would barely recognize on the street the day before. We have seen such a one clasp a young man lovingly around the neck, just because a roller, a little larger than usual came along, and he had considerable difficulty in releasing himself before he was choked to death. 

The same young lady wears a bathing dress that shows her limbs half way up to the knee, and doesn't care who sees them; but in the evening, when at home, if her dress should expose the least bit of a striped stocking to the gaze of her most intimate friends, she would clutch it frantically and drag it down quicker than chain-lightening, while her face would become suffused with blushes. It makes a power of difference where we are, and what we're doing. (We presume that the same lady would blush to look upon Antony and Cleopatra.) – California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences, 1877

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia