SWIMMING

The International Olympics Committee voted in 1910 to introduce swimming events for women. This was significant considering women's swimwear of that time. Since women first started stepping publicly into the water in the mid-nineteenth century, the problem of wet cloth clinging to the female body troubled society. Modesty took precedence over common sense, and the solution was to cover the body in layers- caps, dresses, blouses, skirts, trousers, stockings, shoes, even corsets - all with the hope that the sheer weight of those layers would protect the enveloped body from too curious eyes. The downside of this weight, of course, was that it dropped the body to the bottom like a stone. When women arrived on scene at the Olympics, most had fabricated their own style of racing suit.The English women's 4 X100 meter swim team, pictured here were among the first to adopt the early version of the racing suit.

The importance of these Olympic swimmers was they were taking a stand in a time when it was illegal for women to swim bare legged, and is a formidable example of the need to self-express through clothing.