1949 Winter Sun Resort Wear

Two beach ensembles, the coats of which, when belted, make town dresses, are photographed at Watch Ho, a private beach at St. Croix. Left: a three piece costume with rust colored cotton coat and shorts and a black jersey halter by Tina Leser. Right: green pique coat and one piece swim suit by Joset Walker.

Long sleeves contrast with the off shoulder neckline in a striped suit. It's top, cut exactly like a sweater, is made of elasticized wool jersey to stay down offer unseen shorts.

L'Effrontée

L'Effrontée is a 1985 French film directed by Claude Miller. It stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, who won the César Award for Most Promising Actress.

Charlotte Castang is a working-class 13-year-old girl, who lives in a drab, run-down neighbourhood, and is ready to become an adult. She has been raised without a mother, and lives with her crass brother and her father, whose attention is elsewhere. 

Her only friend is Lulu, a sick 10-year-old pest she would like to be rid of. Charlotte is bored and dreams of a better life, and her life improves when she meets Clara Bauman, a pianist from the other side of the tracks, who she really admires. Charlotte wants to be friends with Clara, who she sees as her ticket out of the area, while the sophisticated Clara jokingly suggests that Charlotte should become her manager.

A great watch, I guess, if you are into these sort of movies.

Provocative?

You might get the impression that all marinière inspired bathing suits are revealing and provocative, like the one on this picture here

but let's be fair and give a more complete picture of marinière inspired togs and trunks.

 

And not only for women:

 

Fellini's La Strada

Gelsomina (Fellini's wife Giulietta Masina), a fey young woman, is sold for 10,000 lire by her impoverished mother to the Gypsy Zampanò (Anthony Quinn), to take the place of her now dead sister Rosa. Zampanò makes a living as an itinerant strongman, entertaining crowds by breaking an iron chain just by expanding his chest, and then passing around a hat for tips.

In short order Gelsomina's naive and clownish instinct emerges, although Zampanò's methods present her with a callous foil. He trains her to play the snare drum and trumpet, dance a bit, and clown for the audience. Despite her willingness to please, he relies on intimidation and even cruelty at times to maintain his dominion.

Finally, she rebels and leaves, making her way into town. There she watches the act of another street entertainer, Il Matto ("The Fool"), a talented high wire artist and clown (Richard Basehart). When Zampanò finds her there, he forcibly takes her back. They join a ragtag traveling circus, and find Il Matto already working there. For reasons he himself cannot understand, Il Matto maliciously teases the strongman at every opportunity. After getting drenched by a pail of water, Zampanò chases after his tormentor with his knife drawn; both men are put in jail.

Il Matto is released first. He shows Gelsomina that there are alternatives to her servitude. Despite this, he talks her out of leaving Zampanò, imparting to her his philosophy that everything and everyone has a purpose, even a pebble, even her. She decides that hers is to take care of her unappreciative master. After Zampanò is freed, she asks if he wants to marry her, but he brushes her off.

Both men are fired from the circus. During the course of his travels, Zampanò comes upon Il Matto, fixing a flat tire on an empty stretch of road. He punches the clown several times and, satisfied with his revenge, starts to leave. Il Matto complains that his watch has been broken, then unexpectedly collapses and dies. Zampanò hides the body and pushes his car off the road.

Zampanò is relieved to get away unseen, but the killing breaks Gelsomina's spirit. After ten days, she is still unable to deal with her grief. When he cannot bear it any longer, he abandons her while she is taking a nap.

Four or five years later, he is drawn to a woman singing a tune Gelsomina often played. He learns that the woman's father had found Gelsomina on the beach and kindly taken her in. However, she wasted away and died. Zampanò gets drunk and wanders to the beach, where he breaks down and cries uncontrollably.

Princess Caroline of Monaco

Princess Caroline of Monaco arrives at the Monte Carlo sporting club to attend the 'Bal de la Rose', a yearly charity event for the Princess Grace foundation. March 25, 2000.

Guaranteed for Life

This sailor started his very own marinière singlet, but never finished... Still, it is a more than substantial effort to glorify the striped shirt!

Le Matelot 512 (Or: Able Seaman 512)

The film is based on a manuscript the director received from the author (Emile Guinde): an old sailor who allegedly related memories from his youth. In 1907 Max (Jacques Penot) had taken a job as a sailor, known as "sailor 512". He then became a captain's (Bruno Kremer) orderly, got the maid (Laure Duthilleul) pregnant and had an affair with the captain's wife (Dominique Sanda)... After a murder story, we find him again in the Legion. He also takes part in World War I... The old man's memories seem slightly exaggerated, no doubt about that. Even though it appears at first sight as a popular novel, the well-balanced profile Allio managed to give it makes the film highly attractive. When Matelot 512 was released, René Allio described in his “Carnets” what he would then claim to be the objective of his life as a film director: To face difficulties, to fight, to overcome obstacles, to start anew (...) To definitely be what one is, an intellectual and an artist, without trying to "elude it", or to fool oneself trying to be "normal", to do "like everyone else", and to make "ordinary cinema".

Madonna and Jean Paul Gaultier

Madonna, wearing another of J.P.G's revealing creations, in the company of the man himself.

Hemingway

'They sat there in their striped fishermen's shirts and the shorts they had bought in the store that sold marine supplies, and they were very tan and their hair was streaked and faded by the sun and the sea. People did not wear fishermen's shirts then and this girl that he was married to was the first girl he had ever seen wearing one. She had bought the shirts for them and then had washed them in the basin in their room at the hotel to take the stiffness out of them. They were stiff and built for hard wear but washings softened them and now they were worn and softened enough so that when he looked at the girl now her breasts showed beautifully against the worn cloth.'

Ernest Hemmingway, The Garden of Eden 

Thanks, Beertje

Beach N0-Wear - Lisa Fonssagrives

Sand Fence, c.1935 (Lisa Fonssagrives)

Fonssagrives was born in Sweden. As a child, she took up painting, sculpting and dancing. She went to Mary Wigman's school in Berlin and studied art and dance. After returning to Sweden, she opened a dance school. She moved from Sweden to Paris to train for ballet (after participating with choreographer Astrid Malmborg in an international competition) and worked as a private dance teacher with Fernand Fonssagrives, which then led to a modeling career, and she would say that modeling was "still dancing". While in Paris in 1936, photographer Willy Maywald discovered her in an elevator and asked her to model hats for him. Fonssagrives' photographs were then sent to Vogue, and Vogue photographer Horst took some test photographs of her. Before Fonssagrives came to the United States in 1939, she was already a top model. Her image appeared on the cover of many magazines during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, including Town & Country, Life, Time, Vogue, and the original Vanity Fair. She was reported as "the highest paid, highest praised, high fashion model in the business". Fonssagrives once described herself as a "good clothes hanger".

She worked with fashion photographers including George Hoyningen-Huene, Man Ray, Horst, Erwin Blumenfeld, George Platt Lynes, Richard Avedon, and Edgar de Evia. She married Parisian photographer Fernand Fonssagrives in 1935; they divorced and she later married another photographer, Irving Penn, in 1950. She went on to become a sculptor in the 1960s and was represented by the Marlborough Gallery in Manhattan.

Fonssagrives died, aged 80, in New York, survived by her second husband, Irving Penn and her two children: her daughter Mia Fonssagrives-Solow, a costume designer, and her son, Tom Penn, a designer.