Women’s swimwear was neither comfortable nor practical back in the day, as Daisy Ridley can attest. To play trailblazing ocean swimmer Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle in Young Woman and the Sea (in theaters ...

“The story really starts with the shift from bathing in Victorian times to swimming,” says FTM curator Dennis Nothdruft. “There was this great movement toward activity, and particularly women being ...

In the 1920s, women’s one-piece swimsuits started really coming into fashion. And along with them came the swimsuit police. Seriously, there were laws about how long a suit had to be—and beach ...