Who Were They?

I am a little late to the Sepia Saturday entries this weekend because I’m trying to buy a car, so apologies for my tardy entry! :-) The prompt for this weekend is a lovely vintage advertisement for a Chevrolet coupe of some kind from the front of their 1930s sales catalog. Since the car is shown by a beach scene, I took this route. I have no head for car models so even though I have lots of car photos, who knows if I have a Chevy!

I love these old bathing suits. They are modest but were oh, so revealing for their time. To our “everything goes” beachwear here in California, these seem laughable and unflattering, but to these folks, the bathing suit was likely very freeing. This group of six has only one young man who is practically crowing at his singularity among the women! The bungalows in the background don’t lend much of an idea as to where the photo was taken, whether lake front or ocean front.

Here is another couple under a beach umbrella and posed in front of a boardwalk. One of the buildings in the very background appears to have a thatched roof, so it could be a replica “in the Hawaiian style” or they could be in Hawaii. I don’t know what tourism was like to Hawaii in the first half of the 20th century. At the time, Hawaii was still an independent island kingdom I believe. You can just see that the lady has her hair tied up in a scarf or cap. It might be a bit breezy since the man is holding onto the umbrella.

I hope you enjoyed these glimpses into the history of bathing gear. Click through to Sepia Saturday to see where others have taken the prompt.