The only thing more daring than the décolleté on this bathing beauty's skimpy swimwear. . . .
is the backward glance, revealing that, except for two skinny straps, her entire torso is bare to the waist. Of excellent china and beautifully modeled and decorated, this seaside siren is about 4 inches long and 2.5 inches high. She is incised "19144" on her right hip. The German firm of Carl Schneider used a 14000 to 19000 number series for its half dolls and bathing beauties, and her modeling is similar to this company's products.
The knitted tank suit, first introduced in 1910 by the Portland Knitting Company (later to become the renown Jantzen swimwear), was praised by swimmers and athletes because its form-fitting fabric made movement easier, but it also caused consternation among those concerned with decency and public morals because such suits were. . . form fitting. Still, the tank suit soon became the popular model for swimwear throughout the 1920s, and over that decade the straps became thinner as the legs climbed up the thighs, revealing ever more limb. As this image from a 1936 catalog demonstrates, by the mid-1930s the ever-shrinking tank suit was "business in the front, party in the back." The narrow straps bared the shoulders, making them appear broader, and this, along with belts and contrasting patterns between the top and bottom, gave the illusion of a narrower waist.
