Swimwear and Theatre

Jon went into the London office today--he may expand on the Google London experience in a later post, but my major take-away from what he told me is that the sushi is not as good as NYC's sushi. Classic Google complaints.

I went to the Fashion and Textile Museum, which is a cozy little museum that shows one large exhibit for several months. Its current exhibit is called Riviera Style--swimwear fashion from 1900 to present day. It was pretty interesting! Pictures are below.

After I walked through the exhibit, I killed some time at the museum cafe with a large glass of white wine ("Good for you!" the cashier said to me) before meeting Jon for pre-theatre dinner at a French restaurant. The food was amazing--my appetizer was a savory cheesecake. I did not know that was a thing until tonight, but it was amazing.

After dinner we saw a play called The Mentalists, with Stephen Merchant and Steffan Rhodri. It was fantastic--and super British! Merchant wants to start a utopian society using Skinner's classical conditioning methods (essentially conditioning everyone to always behave decently, so there would be no war, poverty, pollution, etc.) Rhodri is his best friend, as well as his cameraman--the two of them hole up in a hotel room to create a video explaining Merchant's utopian vision so that he can recruit others for his society. It gets wonderfully weird and dark from there; we were both very happy with it! (It was much better than Bad Jews!) Something that baffles us about London theatre--you have to pay for a program! Not just a nominal fee either, it's 4 pounds! For a glorified cast list! Ridiculous.

There's a Tube strike starting Wednesday evening--the biggest strike in a decade--that will probably go through Thursday, so I imagine we'll be staying a bit closer to home for the next couple days. It'll be a good chance to explore more restaurants and pubs!

If a brief history of swimwear over the last century is of interest to you, see the pictures below!

Bathing dress from the 1890s. It's made of wool, and you'd also wear a cap and shoes with it. They didn't do so well when wet.

In the 1920s-30s, regulation swimsuits for "serious swimmers" were virtually identical for men and women. I thought that was pretty cool--everyone had the same standards for modesty.

A bit later, "telescoping" swimsuits were developed (like those shirts that were all the rage for kids in the late 90s), with vertically and horizontally laid elastic. This was so that swimsuits could fit a wider range of sizes. Also, that suit with the red top is a man's suit--torsos had to be covered but designers pushed boundaries with creative cut-outs.

In the 50s, two-pieces became a thing, although the bottoms always covered navels and were usually cut straight across at the top of the thigh. This higher-coverage style is making its way back into modern bathing suits.

...Men's bathing suits in the 50s got a little silly.

Fun 1960s bathing caps!

Up until the 70s/80s-ish, swimsuits had a lot more internal structure. After that went away, there was a lot more pressure to work out and diet to get a "beach body."

These are apparently the swimsuits we've been wearing for the last twenty years. It made me wonder how much of museum fashion is representative of the mainstream and how much of it is "this was the stuff that looked the coolest."

xo

Hannah