She wore an itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny...

Ah, the bathing suit. Immediately you can envision yourself relaxing on the sand with the sound of the surf drowning out your thoughts while you bake under the hot sun. The bathing suit has gone through a drastic metamorphosis since the 19th century when they were basically gowns that covered all appendages and included a long skirt with weights. Thinking about this swim wear makes me feel claustrophobic, but at the turn of the century everything about the bathing suit began to shrink. Unfortunately by the time the 70's hit, the bathing suit shrank well past the point of being classy and made a bee-line for trashy. It was the window between 1930-1950 when the bathing suit was both functional and sexy. They modestly revealed the best parts of the female figure while disguising the "problem areas". Portrayed on the side of bomber planes in WWII and modeled by some of Hollywood's elite of the day, the bathing suit worked it's way into our hearts and onto our shores.