STYLE : Fashion : My Mother the Bathing Beauty
I recall the summer Dad fulfilled his dream of planting an Olympic-sized pool in our modest back yard in Long Beach. My sister and I were way too glamorous to get wet back then. She was 13, I was 14.
We modeled our poolside fashion aesthetic after Mom. A slender brunette, younger and prettier than anyone else’s mother, Mom turned sunbathing into an art form. She’d stretch out regally on an aluminum chaise longue--resplendent in an orange two-piece suit and frosted nail polish--and dare us to splash her. The bouffant would not be disturbed because, in Mom’s personal water-free zone, the only liquid allowed was in a Styrofoam-shrouded glass.
Then one day, as in a bad O. Henry story, Mom retired from sunbathing. She needed a job to help pay for the pool. While she toiled at the local aircraft factory and returned to her natural pallor, the matriarchal bronzing ritual was passed along to my sister and me, the next generation of bathing beauties. Every day for an entire summer we slathered our white skin with baby oil and waited for the neighborhood boys to come along and amuse us with mock drownings and real belly flops. They always did.
The next summer, like Mom, I swapped sunbathing for money-making. But it was just as well--glamorous poolside attire had gone the way of teased hair. Women in the liberated ‘70s worebreast-flattening tank suits that were flattering only to those with a figure like Twiggy’s. In the ‘80s, the South American thong migrated north along with the dreaded killer bees, exposing more cubic inches of buttock than I care to remember.
Which is why I cheer the comeback of the bathing beauty. Sure, she prefers posing to paddling, but if you twist her barely-muscled arm, she’ll swim a lap or two. Her suits are corseted at the waist, padded at the bust, draped around the neckline and rhinestone-encrusted. Her toenails are polished and encased in a pair of lime patent-leather sandals. As for her hair, she just wraps the whole mess into a sexy towel turban. Nothing could be more glamorous or flattering than that.
You listening, Mom?
