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The black and white photography of the day provides few clues as to the colors of early bathing suits. We notice that quite a few were all black or black with some stripe. We are unsure why black was so common. We do not see white suits. Again we are unsurevjust why. Stripes were very common and many were clearly colored. Thus when speaking of bathing suit colors we are talking here about the colors of the stripes. While there was no color photography in the 19th century, there were some sources of color information. We notice colorized photographs and lithographs. Here we are not always sure about the accuracy. One very important source that we know is accurate is vintage clothing. After World War I we notice post cards wuth bright, some times garish, outlandish colors. This was niot the case before the war. Abnd we think portraits colorized for patrons generally used fairly sccurate colors, although the precise shade may not be precise. we have begun to collect color information, but our archive is still limitedc and we have not yet identified chronological and country trends.
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