Inside a Victorian Bathing Machine
(Wellcome Images)
During the Victorian era, ladies visiting the public beach couldn’t simply wade out into the water and enjoy an invigorating swim. To protect their modesty, most ladies on a seaside holiday utilized a bathing machine. Though the name puts one in mind of a mechanized device, a bathing machine was really nothing more than a wooden dressing room set up on two wheels. The interior was usually equipped with both an entry and an exit door, and generally featured benches on either side, and hooks on the walls.[…]Continue Reading
Seaside Fashions of the 19th Century
“The close of the London and Parisian Season has now arrived, and the Fashionable World has sought the invigorating breezes of the Seaside…”
The Ladies’ Monthly Magazine, 1869.
During the 19th century, there was no such thing as a holiday from fashion. Seaside resorts in England—whether in Brighton, Bournemouth, or Burnham-on-Sea—were as much a place to flaunt one’s style as London itself during the season. An 1869 issue of the Ladies’ Monthly Magazine even goes so far as to declare:
“…splendid as they have been in the season just ended, dresses to be worn at the Seaside, and at the mansions of our Aristocracy, often surpass those that have been worn in London or Paris, during the height of the Season.”
