Dazzle Camouflage Skirts and Swimsuits

Above Here's one more example of the fashionable adoption of dazzle camouflage bathing suits near the end of World War I. Add this to our previous posts on the same subject. Accompanying this photograph was the heading WARS[sic] EFFECT FELT IN BATHING SUITS: Camouflage is supposed to hide things. Bathing suits seem built to reveal. Yet here are these beach nymphs in paradoxical camouflaged bathing suits. The same photo appeared in various newspapers in the US and Canada around the same time, this one in The Winnipeg Tribune, in the Society Section and Woman's Magazine, Saturday, August 16, 1919, p. 1.

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From the "It's Town Talk" column in Free Lance (New Zealand), Issue 972, March 6, 1919, p. 22—

That the new "dazzle camouflage" design on summer skirts may be all right for the ethereal nymph-like form, but for over umpteen stone specimens the least said the better.

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From "Camouflage Finds Use in Fashions" in The Coshocton Tribune (Coshocton OH), April 15, 1920, p. 8—

LONDON—The artists who decorated our recently almost invisible ships and who hid the armies of the western front behind and under painted canvas and "ersatz" villages are out of a job.

Hence the spring millinery styles.

The dazzle hat has arrived, and with it a game.

Says one fashion writer:

"If you see coming toward you a woman who in some unaccountable way seems to melt into a sort of rainbow mass above the shoulders, don't be alarmed; try to find her hat."

To the uninitiated the new spring designs seem to be meaningless collections of colored stripes and zigzags. Some are even more like forked lightning.

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Dazzle Camouflage Bathing Suits

Just when we thought we'd exhausted World War I photos and articles on dazzle-camouflage bathing suits, here are more. Above is a newspaper photo that appeared in the Free Lance (Wellington, New Zealand) Vol 19 No 996, on August 6, 1919, p. 18. The headline reads: DAZZLE BATHING SUITS THE LATEST VOGUE.

And then there's this from the front page of the Washington Herald, on Monday, June 2, 1919 (with no photo)—

HER BATHING SUIT IS GOOD, BUT NOT MUCH

Young Woman in Camouflage Outfit at Coney Island, Reverses Art as Practiced in War and Reveals—Oh, Boy!

New York, June 1—Camouflage, according to the general understanding, is intended to conceal; but the young lady who sprung a "camouflage" bathing suit at Coney Island this afternoon—providing that was her intention—failed to accomplish any such purpose.

It is doubtful if anything about the suit, or the young lady, escaped the attention of the several thousand persons on the beach. No two could be found who agreed on the details of the costume, but they all agreed beautifully regarding the details of the young lady. A woman's description of the effect would be highly technical, so here's one by a man:

Head—Bare.
Face—Slightly tinted.
Neck—Bare.
Arms—Bare.
Legs—Bare.
The rest—bathing suit:

The costume was made of something or other, and its principle colors were violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red, with intermediate shades. It was a perfect fit.

Dazzle Camouflage Swimsuits

The photograph above of British women beach goers dressed in dazzle-style swimwear appeared in The New York Tribune (June 15, 1919, p. 4), with the following caption:

The newest things in bathing suits brighten the beach at Margate, England. The "dazzle" designs of gayest hue defeat the usual purpose of camouflage, that of promoting low visibility.

A week later, the following article, titled “Camouflage Sylphs on Coney Island an Optical Illusion: Stripes of Bathing Costumes Used by Plump Persons to Conceal Full Extent of Their Plumpness,” appeared in the same newspaper (June 23, 1919, p. 7)—

The camouflage bathing suit made its appearance yesterday at Coney Island with the result that there were all sorts of complications among the 250,000 visitors to the resort. It became apparent that the idea, lately imported from Bath, Brighton and other English watering places, has manifold possibilities.

One very stout woman on the beach, for instance, had used such artistry in the arrangement of the ‘lightning stripes’ on her costume that she presented a positively sylph-like figure to the eyes to those some twenty yards or so distant. Many persons who had seen through the deception were amused by the antics of certain sportive young men, who from time to time started in the direction of the camouflaged damsel and then, when they obtained a close-up, kept right on going.

Many of the camouflage costumes were obviously homemade, and it was evident that their wearers had not had an opportunity to perfect themselves in more that the mere elementary principles of the art. In other words, they accentuated angles instead of rounding them, and emphasized rather than concealed avoirdupoise.

It is expected, however, that the new fad will be highly developed before the season is over. Following the service yesterday of fourteen summons upon persons who appeared in the streets in uncovered bathing suits the suggestion was made that camouflage might be perfected to the point where it would hide offenders from the eagle-eyed Coney Island police.

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Camouflaged Bathing Suit | A Swimming Idea WWI

IT’S HERE ON THE BEACHES AT LAST—THE CAMOUFLAGED BATHING SUIT in Boston Sunday Post, August 18, 1918—

Have you seen it? What does it look like? Is it really invisible? How perfectly absurd!

But yet it’s a fact.

We’ve seen camouflaged ships and camouflaged tanks, and camouflage eats…but it took Leonore Bates at Atlantic City to develop the latest camouflage hit.

It is the camouflaged bathing suit. Hereafter when any of the beach policemen get after any girl who seems to have on not quite the regulation costume, they are more than half apt to be met with the reply:

“Why, of course, this is a ‘proper suit.’ Can’t you see, it’s camouflaged.”

It’s a great thing, the camouflage bathing suit, from many standpoints. In the first place, a person wearing one isn’t near so apt to be submarined by those German U-boats who have taken up their quarters on the coast.

Then again they are ideal for the naval spy, for he can sneak up right on top of a submarine and he can attach his depth bomb or anything else which he brought in his pocket with him without any fear of detection and it may be that through the medium of the camouflage bathing suit we may stop this sort of warfare. And how cheaply it can be done.

What do they look like?

The appearance of some of the milder designs is midway between a design cut from a crazy quilt and a futurist painting of the inferno.

Vivid reds, greens, blues and yellows, etc, mixed in a wavy medley of ghastly pale colors, in utter disregard to color harmony, etc., seems to be the general rule, but camouflage it is called, so why say more.

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DULL DAYS ON SANDS in The Stars and Stripes (France), Friday, July 19, 1918, p. 1—

America, July 18—A lady police corps on the job at Coney Island gives stern moral instruction to lady bathers who think that man wants but little here below or above either.

They spend their time separating many warming embracing couples and altogether spoil the whole day for ardent sea bathers.

A lady camouflage corps has camouflaged the wooden battleship Recruit, in Union Square, New York City, in black, white, pink, green and blue.

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CAMOUFLAGE BATHING SUIT IS LATEST STYLE in Boston Post, May 7, 1919, p. 17—

An art of war has survived to these times of peace. It is the art of camouflage which the summertime girl has made her own.  

Even the very bathing suit within which she promenades the sunny sands will not look quite what it is. Camouflaged bathing suits is to be the cry for 1919.

The hot wave brought a striking one to light. It is called the "Sunset" camouflage. This very new suit is black-figured on a white ground with an enormous red setting sun and rainbow colored rays in all directions. So this year the beach frequenters, already grown used to the unusual and the unexpected, may expect to see a hundred setting suns bobbing up and down at sea where once there was one.

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WW1 Camouflaged Misogyny—After a Fashion

Civilian examples of camouflage (1917)

Above Camouflage and fashion cartoon (digitally restored) from The Ogden Standard (Ogden UT), December 3, 1917, p. 11.

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Anon, CONEY ISLAND WAR THRILLS in The World's News (Sydney AU), August 23, 1919, p. 19—

Americans are experiencing many thrills of near participation in the war this summer. A great number of novel reproductions of action along the battle fronts, in the air, and at sea, are to be seen at Coney Island (New York) and similar holiday resorts.

…A popular device…is called "Treat 'em rough," which was the motto of the American Tank Corps during the war. Patrons are strapped in seats and sent through an extraordinary series of up and down and sidewise motions that only the strongest constitutions can successfully stand. This new "stunt" is advertised as guaranteed to reduce fat and put anybody in trim for an army career.

Coney Island is attempting daring water novelties this summer in the form of bathing suits for feminine wear, consisting of single-piece garments with zigzag stripes. They are called "camouflage suits"—because it is so difficult to see them.

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Anon, from BRITISH AND FOREIGN in Alburry Banner and Wodonga Express (New South Wales AU), August 8, 1919, p. 35—

Girls so cleverly camouflaged that it was difficult for the audience to tell whether they were looking at the faces or the backs of the girls, greatly amused the Queen [of England] who attended an exhibition of drill given them at the Savoy Hotel, London, on a recent occasion.

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From the Melbourne Punch (Victoria AU), May 16, 1918, p. 32—

A lately returned traveler from Sydney tells us we are awfully dull down here—that life up there is so Continental it is dine out at some hotel or restaurant (of which there are many to choose from) every evening, wearing a whitewash complexion, watermelon lips, a camouflage skirt, and the merest whisper of a dinner blouse; then on to a theatre; thence to a cocktail supper.

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Anon, from THE WEEK in The World's News (Sydney AU), April 13, 1918, p. 14—

Dame Fashion is a fool, and that is putting it mildly. She decrees that women must adopt camouflage for their dress. What need is there for any such thing? Hasn't woman camouflaged ever since Eve took Adam in over the apple? Of course she has, and will continue to do it just whenever it suits her ideas. If she wants to win a post that wheedling won't accomplish, she camouflages her face with tears, and lo, she arrives at the desired end. And what she can do with rouge and powder passes all understanding. It is camouflage carried to a fine art. What man could tell that the short-frocked, finely-complexioned, sixteen-year-old hatted person at a distance was over forty and the mother of six? That is camouflage, and with a vengeance, and yet Fashion wants to add to it by use on dresses. If it means that plain cotton stuff at 1s 2d the yard, six yards for 6s 6d, can be so faked by the skillful dressmaker as to appear like a silk confection at a guinea a yard, by all means camouflage. But if it means turning a probable ten-guinea costume into a twenty-pounder, then camouflage is a miserable failure. Everything depends upon what that fickle jade, Fashion, is after. Usually she strives to deplete the purse of the hardworking husband or father, but if in this case, as in the case of ships, the object is to save—then camouflage for ever.

Camouflaged Mermaids and Water Nymphs

 Above A cartoon from Harper's magazine (September 1919), with the caption: "To Decrease Visibility: Why not camouflage stockings?"
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The following paragraph (about camouflage beachwear) appeared in the Little Oddities of Life section of Illustrated World (1918), p. 369, with the heading "Mermaid Indulges in Camouflage"—

The surf seemed deserted. Scores of masculine "beach combers" and "sand lizards" thronged the Board Walk, watching the breakers roll in at Atlantic City and looking for mermaids and water nymphs. None were visible, yet one sported in the waves. The camera revealed what was not apparent to the eye. With her alluring figure hidden by a camouflaged swimming suit, this pretty bather dared the dangers of lurking U-boats and over-curious spectators. Thus the "now you see it; now you don't" bathing costume became the rage. It is rumored that next season these suits will be made for fat men and mothers-in-law. These bathing suits present great possibilities for the paragraphers and the wits, besides offering opportunities for clever filming to the comedy movie man. The Tired Business Man, however, will not suffer unnecessarily from eye strain on his vacation.

Scandalous Camouflage Bathing Attire 1919

You may recall earlier posts that included photographs and news reports on scandalous dazzle-camouflaged bathing suits (see below) that began in the UK at the close of World War I, then spread to the US and elsewhere. We've now located an American newspaper cartoon on the same subject (reproduced above). Created by Walter R. Allman as part of his series called DOINGS OF THE DUFFS, it appeared on page 4 of The Palm Beach Post on August 20, 1919. It shows a woman dressed in the same kind of striped bathing suit that had been sighted on the beach.

 

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William Edward Ross, “America’s Pledge to Humanity’s Cause” in The National Magazine. Vol XLVII No 7 (June 1918), p. 326—

The sudden importance of everything attached to ships has resulted in many new devices for their protection, and perhaps no word coined during the present war has sprung into such instant popularity as the term “camouflage.” Born of necessity, its particular appeal to the need of the hour has rendered it extremely expressive. The general definition of “camouflage” is to deceive the enemy through some subterfuge which leads him to believe that what he sees is not what it is. It has proven one of the most valuable adjuncts to present war tactics, as applied to naval and merchant marine disguise. 

The artists assigned to the camouflage work have a well-appointed studio and theatre [which simulate] conditions that the ships will experience on the ocean as portrayed. It is their duty to devise ways and means, as well as do the actual work, to disguise these vessels in such a way that they will be almost indistinguishable.

Records received from the British Government indicate that camouflage is working even more successfully than was believed possible. A recent test was made when a camouflaged British ship was fired at with blank torpedoes, and the submarine captain insisted that he had made the best shots he had ever made, but the men on the camouflaged vessel hardly knew they were being fired at, the shots went so wide of the mark. On another instance, two vessels were passing each other, one camouflaged, the other au natural. One captain figured that their courses were going to meet. He blew his whistle to signal change of course. The first vessel paid no attention to his signals, and he began to notice that the thing was sliding sideways. They passed about a quarter of a mile apart, although the captain would have sworn the camouflaged ship was coming directly toward him. The entire system is simply a matter of physics and optical illusion. It is what the British call the “dazzle system,” and, when several duly camouflaged ships are passing by in Hampton Roads, it resembles nothing so much as a futurist painting—a conglomerate mass of phantom shapes. The use of camouflage and its value as a protective force furnishes an apt paraphrase on a prominent quotation, namely, “The hand which wields the paint brush saves the ship.”