Textiles and Dress

1907 Sydney bathing costume protests

The 1907 Sydney bathing costume protests were a response to a proposed ordinance by the Waverley Shire Council to require the wearing of a skirt-like tunic by male bathers. On the morning of Sunday 20 October, thousands of surf bathing enthusiasts poured onto the sands of Bondi, Manly, and Coogee beaches in various types of feminine dress enacting a humorous mockery of the proposed regulations. The protest at Bondi was reportedly the largest of the three, with a "swarm of humanity" participating in and observing the protests. The positivity with which the protests were regarded by both the general public and the media proved the end for the Waverley council's costume proposal; the tunic/skirt ordinance was not included in the beach ordinances promulgated in the following months. This protest was separate from the 1935 NSW state ordinance relating to the Spooner bathing costume mostly directed at male wearers as bathing trunks were considered 'disgraceful'.

Also on this shelf

See also

• ▸Bianfu
• ▸Girolamo Frescobaldi
• ▸Fashion in the Liao dynasty

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Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.