In the early part of the 20th century young women became involved in attempts to liberate themselves from both Victorian domestic role playing and prudery. Evaluating the significance of the great quantities of tinted postcards of women in bathing costumes poses a number of difficult questions. Should the cards be viewed as images of women expressing independence from Victorian prudery? Are they a statement of confidence and style? Or do they represent a reassertion of male voyeurism in which women play a complicit part? Perhaps the meaning is an amalgam of all of these. The majority of this type of postcard were photographed in the studio against painted backdrops. Primitive camera and film technology and the weather determined the use of artificial surroundings. It is interesting to note that today these types of postcard are almost always described as either ‘Risqué’ or ‘Glamour’, which suggests that in the early 20th cent they were seen as provocative. Ninety years on the cards seem both charming and innocent. And they also provide definitive fashion documents. There are two distinct styles of postcard, which date from either before or after the 1st World War. Before World War 1 The earlier striped and high cut bathing costumes from France and England are coy, they are fun, the girls seem to be learning about or playing with the idea of freedom.
They deploy fishing nets or paddles, using them symbolically, or as a device to add authenticity to the contrived studio set. | 
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| Some French cards depict swimming lessons with figures montaged into a contrived sea.
They are genteel illustrations of fun at the seaside, rather than sexually alluring or suggestive postcards. |
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