 Photo by Adam Wallacavage
born again
A day at the beach with Grandma was always scary. We'd stroll down the Atlantic City boardwalk, past the gold laméd fortune-seekers, step over the sprawled-out alcoholics on the stairs and descend upon the cigarette-butted beach. Once camp was set up, she'd take off her creased polyester shorts, only to reveal a loud floral suit from an era long gone. And what was with that bathing cap? This was the '80s, when I was sporting the latest asymmetrical hairdo and wearing Berlin T-shirts. I couldn't see beyond that plastic flower garden grandma wore on her head. I couldn't see its history value, I just wanted to get as far away from her as possible.
Now, with rhinestoned cat glasses, halter tops, and plastic see-through
tote bags back in style, the bathing cap can not be ignored. It
must be dealt with.
Beach headgear, though not always made of rubber, has been around for centuries. Hats - no matter where you were or what you were doing - completed an outfit. Wide-brims were worn to spare milky, upper-class skin from the sun's cancerous rays. And bathing hats had been around since the early 1900s. In the '50s, a company called U.S. Rubber came out with a new product called Water Velvet, a soft-looking rubber which didn't get wet and sag like other materials. With this technology they made waterproof caps that could be dyed any color. Around the same time, women's swimwear was shrinking, showing more skin than ever. The hourglass figure was emphasized, celebrated even. It didn't stop with swimwear. Bathing caps were brighter and busier. Some even had removable flower appliqués for swimtime. A bathing cap could be spotted on the heads of the young and old. They were used in competitive sports like synchronized swimming, where it was very important for all the girls to look the same. Esther Williams, a synchronized swimming starlet, always wore them in her films. But the bathing cap frenzy wasn't just a result of trendy, tasteless fashion. These plastic caps - in any form - were required in Philadelphia city pools and in local YMCAs. The old filtration systems couldn't handle the hair clogs, says Charlie Wagner of the city's Department of Recreation. Lucky for us, about 25 years ago, the city put in new-fangled systems with special "hair-catchers." Regulations aside, one 50-year-old Philadelphian confides, "There was an understanding that if you were a proper girl you wore a cap. If you didn't wear a bathing cap people looked down on you." Nowadays, women have a little more freedom. We can wear string bikinis and refuse to shave our legs and pits. But girls who only 10 years ago were wearing Jem and the Holograms bathing suits are now opting for plaid boy-shorts and halter tops. Will they bring back the bathing cap? "They are old-ladyish. I couldn't see it," says Ed Wolkov, owner of Cameo swimwear, which has been in business for 50 years. Though Wolkov contends that young people aren't used to wearing them, he carries a line of them anyway: regular old Speedo sporty styles, some with flowers, and others with "lacing for a little decor." But they are not flying off the shelves - he contends bathing caps are 1 percent of his business. The owners of local vintage shops Astro-Pop, Venus In Furs and Wear It Again Sam don't stock 'em either. I guess for now they'll keep their status as a collectable relic of the past. Synchronized swimming anyone?
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