Figure 1.--Here we see a rather large gathering of people on a German beach in 1907. It was taken at B�sum on the North Sea. Many German North Sea beaches have wide tidal washes like this. Notice all the sticks the people are carrying. We think these may be walking sticks. They are tideland hiking. Note that it seems to be a chilly, windy day.

Of course beach wear varied over time. As beach vacations began to become popular, we see beach fashions appearing. Beachwear in the 19th and early 20th century did not always mean swimwear. We see Germans wearing a wide range of styles to the beach. The outfits often seem rather formal, especially beachwear befire World War I. Many outfits were not specifically beachwear, but rather popular syyles that were commonly worn at the beach. The sailor suit was a very popular garment for beachwear during the early 20th century. Boys of course worn many other outfits besides sailor suits. These styles varied over time, but almost all of our seaside beach images come from the 20th century. A German reader tells us about the image here, "The German group is tideland hiking. As the north sea has a lot of that it is rather popular. I did it myself. The man in the front is surly the guide. He guides them through the tideland telling them about animals, plants or what ever can be found in the tidelands. This picture was taken in Büsum in July 1907." After World War I especially by the 1930s increasingly became swimwear. This same trend occurred in other countries as well.

The 19th Century

The outfits often seem rather formal, especially beachwear before World War I. We have no 19th century imahes at this time. Photography at ther time was mosttly studio photography. We do have images from the eraly-20th centye=ry which still show substantial formaility at the beach.

The 20th Century

Many outfits were not specifically beachwear, but rather popular syyles that were commonly worn at the beach. The sailor suit was a very popular garment for beachwear during the early 20th century. Boys of course worn many other outfits besides sailor suits. These styles varied over time, but almost all of our seaside beach images come from the 20th century. A German reader tells us about the image here, "The German group is tideland hiking. As the north sea has a lot of that it is rather popular. I did it myself. The man in the front is surly the guide. He guides them through the tideland telling them about animals, plants or what ever can be found in the tidelands. This picture was taken in Büsum in July 1907."After World War I especially by the 1930s increasingly became swimwear. We see a steady shift from formal wear to casual wear and play clothes as well as swimwear. We still note fasgionalble clothes, but not formal imnti the 1960s. This same trend occurred in other countries as well. We see fewer and fewer boys dressed formally for the beach, especially by the 1970s. Children were dressed for fun. That this not mean neesarily swimwear becauuse younger children were more likely to paddle in the shallows or play in the sand than to swim.

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Sailor suits] [Sailor hats] [Buster Brown suits]
[Eton suits] [Rompers] [Tunics] [Smocks] [Pinafores]

Created: 7:18 PM 3/28/2006
Last updated: 11:58 PM 12/7/2020