Jantzen at 100

We’re happy that Jantzen is celebrating its centennial this year, 1910-2010. The swimwear company has been a big part of our lives as long as we can remember – as from Mother we inherited the inability to resist anything with their darling red diving girl logo, which the company started using in 1920.

The Jantzen red diving girl logo. It was supposedly designed by commercial artist Russell H. Tandy – who also did the artwork for the original Nancy Drew! Janzten has a history of the now iconic figure, here.

Jantzen introduced the “Shouldaire” suit in 1931 to address the tan line problem. Glamoursurf is selling this amazing '30s teal colored one, below!

Near the Jantzen factory in Portland, Oregon, Jantzen Beach Amusement Park opened in 1928. There were rides, dancing, and of course, swimming. Read all about the history of this long-gone, fabulous place and see lots more images on this Portland history website.

Above images from http://pdxhistory.com/html/jantzen_beach.html. Below, our version of the Jantzen girl chorus line (that's Astairette in red scarf, far left).


Mother’s collection of Jantzen and “vintage beachy-stuff” includes this 7-foot diving girl sign (originally outlined in neon) from an old motel.

Some of the Mother-lode collection.

Match Game: 1920s-30s Ladies' Tennis Fashions

Tennis fashions for ladies, like other forms of athletic dress, changed rapidly in the early 1900s, coinciding, not surprisingly, with the rising popularity of the sport. American tournament tennis goes back to 1880, with the founding of the Newport Casino at the summer resort of Newport, Rhode Island; the first Tennis Week (forerunner of the U.S. Open) took place on its lawn in 1881. Edith Wharton writes of the period just prior to this, briefly, in The Age of Innocence (1920): The Newport Archery Club always held its August meeting at Beaufords’. The sport, which had hitherto known no rival but croquet, was beginning to be discarded in favor of lawn-tennis; but the latter game was still considered to rough and inelegant for social occasions…” With fashionable socialites taking up lawn-tennis, this would soon change. By 1915, the tournament had outgrown the casino and moved to Forest Hills, New York.

Dorothy Dale, the heroine of Margaret Penrose's long-running series books for girls, dressed in the height of feminine tennis chic, 1910.

Joan Crawford, 1925

In the ‘20s, tennis skirt lengths rose from ankle to knee, a trend that California-born women’s tennis champion Helen Wills (later Helen Wills Moody Roark) attributed to her French rival, Suzanne Lenglen. “Since she appeared, skirts have risen from the ankle to the knee, and the tessnis dress has become simple and practical.” Wills declared in her 1928 book, Tennis. Lenglen’s dresses were of heavy white silk – though in Wills’ opinion, white linen or cotton material would be “far more practical, especially where summers are warm.”

Top, From Modes & Manners magazine, spring 1925. Above: 1926 ad

Sleeves were the next battleground. As Wills recounts in Tennis:

“Within the last few years there have been radical changes in women’s dress for tennis. Not four years ago an incident occurred in the West Side Club at Forest Hills that is amusing now. One of the members, an attractive young woman, appeared one day on the courts without any sleeves whatsoever on her tennis dress. Some of the more conservative members of the club happened to be sitting on the veranda. Later, as a result, a special meeting was called by the club committee, and one member was chosen to tell Miss -----, tactfully but firmly, that completely bare arms could not be allowed. In the last tournament on which I participated at Forest Hills, there was hardly a sleeve to be found among all of the players!”

One the arms were bared, stockings were the next to go. Wills still wore white silk stockings with her white shoes in 1928, but noted that some players were starting to adopt short wool socks that came just to the top of their shoes, rather than stockings, an idea that Wills admitted was sensible. In fact, sportswriter Al Mitchell credited Wills with popularizing this trend, writing in the August 11, 1934 edition of his column, Out of the Pressbox

“At Wimbledon, the holy of holies in the net world, the idea of going without stockings was considered too déclassé for discussion until Helen Wills Moody, then world champion, adopted the style. Socks were shed all over the world after that.”

Then came tennis shorts revolution in ladies’ tennis attire. At first, they were seen here and there, causing a similar reaction as sleeveless dresses. It took another champion Helen, Helen Jacobs, to bring them into the mainstream. She caused a sensation when she appeared in shirts at Wimbledon in 1933, the year the Associated Press named her Female Athlete of the Year. As Mitchell also wrote in 1934: “Helen Jacobs….stepped out on the Forest Hills, L.I., courts to defend her national championship clad in the scanty attire. You can get your answer to the question of tennis shorts’ popularity by visiting ‘most any court now.”

Helen Jacobs at Wimbledon, 1933.

Carole Lombard. From Life, 1938.

Many women, however, still preferred skirts. Divided skirts (literally) split the difference. Wrote a fashion reporter on May 25, 1931:

“If you are one of those slim young things who went in for shorts and polo shirts last year, you are probably wondering where they stand in good tennis form this year. Frankly, they’re not the rage they were, although you may see them occasionally. Much better, if you’re an acolyte of the trousers system, is the new tennis dress with a divided skirt.”

Tennis players, 1931

The same anonymous AP press writer went on to say: “Two drastic changes have volleyed into the structure of the new tennis dress. The desperately low sunback has practically disappeared from the smart courts… even the lowest back rarely descends farther than midway between your shoulder blades.” A bright belt was another new note in tennis fashion. By summer 1936, culottes were very popular for tennis, as well as for biking and golfing, with divided skirts still more favored than shorts and a shirt.

Jean Harlow

Helen Wills (left, with rackets) and Helen Jacobs, 1939.

White remained the only correct color for formal tennis wear. Color, Wills suggested in 1928, “could be introduced in a sweater, worn to and from the court – solids preferable over patterns, and gay colors such as brilliant yellow or rose shades being better than dark shades.” You could match the color in your headband (unless wearing a white visor or “eye-shade”). Mlle Lenglen’s trademark was the bandeaux. To imitate this look, Wills suggests taking a piece of chiffon about 2-yards long by 5 inches wide and pressing one end tightly to your head, winding it firmly until you can tuck the remaining end snugly under the bandeau at the back of the head. The color should match your sweater.

The glamourous Mlle Lengren, Suzanne with one of her trademark bandeaux, 1920s. She is also depicted in the painting at the top of this post.

Helen Wills, from her book, Tennis, in 1928.

I. Magnin resort wear, 1934

Helen Wills in 1935. Note monogram.

Helen Jacobs

Courtly fashions, 1938.

Sources & Resources

“The Sporting Times of Tennis” Victoria magazine, July 1992.

The Newport Casino now houses the International Tennis Hall of Fame and Museum. Its grass courts are open to the public. For more info, click here.



The Keds “Court Ace” shoe, a reproduction of their 1934 original, is currently available, here.


Eva Dress’ reproduction 1935 German One-Piece Sports Outfit pattern, here.

1930s Pedicures

It’s been a while since we did the post on 1930s manicures – high time indeed we turned our attention southward to the feet, and the 1930s pedicure. Pedicures had been part of “the meticulously groomed” woman’s beauty routine since the ‘20s, but it was not until the casting off of stockings and closed-toe shoes for beachwear, and the increasing popularity of “barefoot” beach shoes and “toeless” evening sandals that the pedicure, and painted toenails, really came into their own. As popular beauty writer Alicia Hart wrote in her long-running Glorifying Yourself column in 1933, “The importance of swimming and beach bathing in our modern life, and the interest of smart women in meticulous grooming, have made pedicures almost as desirable as manicures.” Weekly pedicures were highly recommended, not only for beauty but for health of the feet.

The procedure for the pedicure was basically the same then as now. Wealthy women could have theirs done at salons, but beauty experts noted that they were very easy to perform at home; the little foam-rubber thingy for separating the toes was available by at least 1938 – before that, wads of cotton was recommended, as in the article below from 1937. As for paining the toes, did they or didn’t they? Just as with painted fingernails, some did, some did not. At first considered rather daring, the practice gained greater acceptance as the decade went on. And, as with many trends of the era, the fad for toenail painting was said to have originated at fashionable French resorts. “You hear a lot about toe-nails painted to match fingernails as the last word in style from the other side, adopted by sophisticates here” Miss Hart had written in 1931, noting that she didn’t see a lot of them around. Her contemporary, Gladys Glad, said in October 1931, “The fad for vari-colored toenails attained a surprising amount of popularity on the continent during the past summer season. On almost all fashionable beaches, girls sported toenails that were colored to match their fingernails or their bathing suits. And in most case, the entire effect, while a trifle bizarre, was really quite a charming one. Of course there are some folks who think this fad a stupid one, and decidedly in poor taste.”

As noted in the manicure post, in the early-to mid ‘30s, fingernails were typically pained with the half-moon left bare, and in many cases the tip likewise unpainted, or treated with a nail-white product, as shown in the Cutex ad below from 1937. By the end of the decade, the tip was commonly painted, and sometimes the half-moon as well. Beauty experts of the day had differing opinions of how to accomplish the toenail painting, so any method that suits you would be equally period correct. Alicia Hart, for example, wrote in 1933: “If you wear bright polish on your fingernails, cover toenails with the same. If not, use a vivid shade on the feet just the same. Begin at the outer edges of the little half moon and cover the entire nail, including the tip.” Gladys Glad wrote in summer 1935, “Never use a polish on your toenails that will clash with the tint used on your fingertips,” adding “when applying the polish to your toenails, brush it with outward strokes only, onto the central portion of each nail: the half-moon and rims should of course be left their contrasting white hue.” Others of the same period advocated covering the entire nail, including half-moon and tip, with polish.