In yesterday’s post we looked at a debate over swimming caps at the Olympic Games, so let’s move from this accessory to rediscover the allure of bathing caps with some vintage designs from the late '50s by Betty Darling.
The caps were created by Betty Geib, a Long Island housewife, who originally designed them to amuse her children.
The caps featured indeed funny masklike faces and motifs including a sea serpent, a black cat, and a sunflower, decorating the back of the head and creating a fun effect when you saw a wearer donning one.
Life magazine (20th April 1959 issue) stated indeed about the caps "it may be difficult to tell whether the girls on the beach this summer are coming or going".
The first ones she made for a church bazaar were rather successful, so Geib started producing them under the name Betty Darling.
Probably better for leisure activities around the swimming pool or the beach rather than for vigorously swimming in the sea, the caps still look fun after all these years and could be considered as the antecedents of contemporary kids' fun swimming caps shaped like animals such as cats, bears, fish or sharks.
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