I LOVE, LOVE the 20s fashions -- just NOT the bathing attire!!

I get seasick every time I look at this.

Good memory, Lectrogeek. "Even grouchy traffic cops get jolly, when they see you step into a trolley." Here's Billy Murray's popular rendition of "Roll 'Em Girls," recorded on November 4, 1925.

Boy, that photographer really went all-out with the backdrop, and even if he managed to crop it well, that flagpole sticking out of the ocean behind the girl on the right is going to be harder to get rid of.

A publicity still from Some Like It Hot?

When I was in middle school, in the early '80s, I took a judo class taught by one Morey Korey, who was then about 80 years old. He really moved well for an octogenarian, and naturally, he was big on stretching exercises, which were accompanied by a song he had learned as a teenager, and which he taught us:

Roll 'em, girlies, roll 'em,
Go ahead and roll 'em,
Go ahead and show your pretty knees.
Don't let teacher tell you that it's shocking.
Paint your sweetie's picture on your stocking.
Laugh at Ma, laugh at Pa,
Give them all the ha-ha-ha,
Roll 'em girlies, girlies roll your own!

In a short 90 years, girls went from 95% coverage to only 5% coverage!

from here to the first bikini. Regarding these styles,I think the birth rate in the early '20s must have been near zero.

I read an interview with the "oldest living Ziegfeld girl", Doris Eaton Travis from just before she died at age 106 last year. She said she didn't like the fashions of the 1920's. She thought they were unflattering. And I have to say, these outfits are BIG TIME hideous. I mean, the addition of color might help, but what this looks like to me is a VERY awkward halfway point between old fashioned "bathing costumes" and modern one piece swimsuits. Gak indeed.

All that cloth would probably be heavy when wet. I love the style, though.

are the three on the right part of Les Cagelles?

There's a pretty face or two in this picture but the outfits are so outlandishly awful (and unflattering to boot), it would take a veritable Angelina Jolie to shine in these get-ups. (clearly "less is more" was NOT the motto in those days for bathing beauties)

What we have here is a failure to crop the brick wall out of the picture.

Next thing you know they will be appearing at the beach without stockings. Where will it end?

they are not really at the ocean.