Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

provided by

This clip shows people at the beach in Sorrento, Victoria in the 1920s. An old beach shack is contrasted with luxurious holiday houses complete with gardens and tennis courts. Crowds are shown at the beach, some of them wearing swimming costumes and others more formally dressed, with the women wearing dresses and hats and holding parasols, and the men in trousers, jackets and straw boaters. The final shot shows a group of women in calf-length dresses and carrying parasols walking along the shoreline. The clip is silent and in black and white, and includes intertitles.

Educational value points

• After by-laws that prohibited swimming at Australian beaches during daylight hours, because it was considered immodest, were lifted in the early 1900s, a visit to the beach became a popular pastime. By the 1920s beach culture was becoming an entrenched part of the Australian way of life, fostered partly by a craze for body surfing, but also by the identification of Australians with a healthy, outdoor and athletic lifestyle. In this period the iconic figure of the bronzed Australian lifesaver emerged as a symbol of nationhood.

• In the early 1900s bathers were required by state and council laws to wear costumes that extended from neck to knee, but by the 1920s these restrictions had relaxed a little, with costumes inching up to mid-thigh. However, the beaches were patrolled by inspectors who could fine beach-goers for immodesty. The majority of people wearing swimming costumes in this clip are men or boys, which suggests that in the 1920s bathing was predominantly a male pastime.

• In the 1920s, as this clip illustrates, typical swimwear for both men and women consisted of either maillot-style (one-piece) suits or ‘tank’ tops tucked into belted shorts. Costumes were made of a dark knitted woollen material that was heavy when wet. Women sometimes wore bathing caps similar to the cloche hats of the era.

• In the 1920s a reduction in working hours, which meant that most people did not have to work on Saturday afternoons, saw an increase in leisure activities such as beach-going. Some workers had also been granted paid holidays, although paid annual leave did not become standard until 1941 with the introduction of 1 week’s leave for all workers. Improved public transport also facilitated easier access to the inner beaches such as St Kilda Beach in Melbourne, Victoria.

• In the 1920s an increase in leisure activities led to the creation of less formal leisure wear specifically for the kind of outing shown here. Light-coloured calf-length summer dresses made from lightweight fabrics and with a low waist, such as the dresses worn by the women in this clip, were popular, while men wore white slacks with a blazer and a hat called a straw boater. The cost of these new consumer items of dress put them beyond the reach of most.

• The popularity of beach-going, which is evident in promotional films such as this, saw the development of resorts such as Sorrento where guesthouses and hotels were built to accommodate an increasing number of tourists. The development of Sorrento is humorously referred to in the clip, with intertitles stating that a dilapidated shed used to be considered ‘a natty summer residence. / ... but NOW’, followed by a cut to a two-storey hotel surrounded by well-tended gardens, with a wide driveway and tennis court.

• In the early 1920s a fair complexion was fashionable for women, and as this clip shows, women used parasols to protect themselves from the sun. Fair skin was seen as a sign that a woman was a ‘lady’ and did not work outdoors. This began to change during the 1920s when fashion designer Coco Chanel appeared with a tan and by the 1940s women’s magazines were advocating the health benefits of tanning.

• Parasols became popular as elegant fashion accessories for the wealthy in the Victorian era, but served the practical purposes of providing shade and allowing their users to glance at others while remaining unseen when out in society. They were made in many different colours, often patterned or decorated, and sometimes designed to coordinate with a woman’s outfit. The parasol canopy was made from fine fabrics such as silk or chiffon and was often trimmed with lace, bows or tassels. Parasol handles were made from wood, porcelain, horn, ivory or even silver.