Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 January 1891 — Bathing at Trouville. [ARTICLE]

Bathing at Trouville.

To give an idea of the care that is bestowed upon a bathing dress at Trouville, let me describe one among many that I saw. The wearer came out of her bathing machine wrapped in a coat of Turkey red silk. Her hat was of white straw, with Turkey red ribbons and flowers. Her sandals were white, laced with red tapes that crossed above her ankles, and were there tied in a bow. The silk cloak shone in the sun. It did not even partially reveal her figure; in fact, the women in these cloaks looked at a distance like Bedouins. As this lady’s feet touched the water she raised tier arms and spread them, and the gossamer cloak fell into the hands of the bathing attendant. Then she stood revealed to the concourse of onlookers, clad as for a spectacle on the stage. She wore a loose blouse of Turkey red flannel, short, tight red breeches, and red stockings. Her blouse was opened in front-by two great lapels, between which was a white shirt with red stripes across it. Behind it had a great broad sai’or collar, white and banded with red. The extravagances and eccentricities of the costumes on that beach were wonderful, and altogether they helped to form as brilliant and gay a scene as one could well imagine. Some of the cloaks were striped, some were green, some yellow. Sometimes the suits worn beneath them matched the cloaks, yet often they did not. But while the skirts w ere often short, the arms were often sleeveless, and I even saw two or three skirts that were somewhat decollete, there were no costumes tvom in the water that justified the pictures commonly seen in the Parisian illustrated papers. I doubt whether many of the costumes at Trouville would startle the bathers at Narragansett Pier, except that tfley are much more costly and artistic than the bath robes worn at the Pier. —Julian Ralph, in Harper's Weekly.