THEY SWAM WITH THEIR BOOTS ON

“She took the boots off when she went in the water, right?”
That’s what a friend asked recently when I showed her a picture of a 19th century bathing costume.
My first response was: “Boots? What boots?”
We already knew Victorian swimwear was a long way from even the most modest modern gear. Sure, there are a significant minority (including me) who wear legging swimsuits and rashguard shirts for modesty, sunburn protection, or some combination of the two. But nobody’s out there splashing around in several layers of wool.
With boots.
If you’re like me, it takes you a while to get down to the boots.
The rest of the outfit is wild enough.
When swimming became a socially acceptable activity for mixed-gender groups, instead of slipping off to skinny-dip in the nearest body of water, people needed something to wear. As usual in matters of dress, men were more concerned with comfort than modesty, and their swimwear evolved from the wool long underwear that was common at the time.
Women’s clothes, though, were much more about coverage than comfort, never mind safety. Well after the turn of the 20th century, women were still wearing full wool union suits with dresses over them, or long-sleeved dresses with wool stockings in the water. You’ll note two mentions of wool there – for good reason.
We associate wool with warm winter gear, but it was actually a pretty good material for swim stockings. In the right knit, it’s breathable and handles water well. Cotton, the other possibility, gets soggy and loses its shape pretty quickly. (Nobody would wear silk stockings in the water – if you could even get them, you’d save them for your best ballgown.)
Still, nobody wants to be running around in all those layers at the beach – and for sure not in the water. Long skirts and long hair looked nice, but you’ll note that almost as soon as women started swimming competitively, you start seeing bathing caps and more streamlined suits.
Now, about those boots.
They really WERE boots. I’d thought maybe it was just the way things looked in the illustrations or photos, but nope, women wore canvas boots at the beach – and you can still find them online!
Boots in general were the signature footwear of the time. Men, women, and children wore boots for almost everything outside the house. A woman might have a pair of high-heeled slippers for her fanciest evenings…but she might as easily wear satin boots.
So it’s really no surprise that women would wear boots to the beach. Swim boots were usually black or cream-colored canvas, with laces. Regular boots sometimes came in canvas, so that wasn’t really unique.
But the soles were. Unlike street boots, which had leather or rubber soles, swim boots usually had canvas soles. Overall, surviving models look a lot like boxing shoes, between the laces and the flat, thin sole.
The end result was a relatively light, flexible shoe that would provide some protection from any hazards in the water.
Note “relatively” light. You’d still be paddling around out there with a bunch of wet canvas laced to your feet. No wonder women ditched the shoes as soon as they started competitive swimming.
But swim boots live on today (beyond the vintage ones on Etsy!). Those water shoes you wear at the beach are direct descendants of them…if just a little cuter.

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