History of beachwear

The invention of the railway, and the proliferation of rail travel in the mid 1800s made it possible for large numbers of people to visit coastal regions. While previously, people had bathed or frolicked nude on the beaches, the increased popularity of coastal regions, due to ease of travel, created a need for beachwear.

More recently, the appearance of urban beaches has created a demand for beachwear that, unlike swimwear, is appopriate for being worn in an urban setting, such as the downtown core of a major metropolitan city.

Transformability of beachwear and urban beachwear

Many people like to remain "beach ready", at all times, i.e. to wear something that can be spontaneously transformed into beachwear. For men, simply wearing, for example, black shorts that have an integral belt made of nylon webbing (rather than shorts that have a drawstring), together with a shirt that has a nice collar, allows them to transform from business attire (with the shirt) to beachwear, simply by removing their shoes and shirts. This allows spontaneous unplanned visits to a beach, which is especially useful for urban beaches that are usually located within the downtown business core of a city. Transformable beachwear makes lunch hour trips to the beach possible, reducing the need to find a place to change, and to carry additional sets of clothing, etc.. Good beach shorts will be mostly dry, quickly, during ten or 15 minutes of sunbathing on hot black granite or dark cement that also absorbs a lot of the water. Because urban beaches usually have a roughly textured black surface, that absorbs both water and sun (and thus heats up), good beachwear can usually be dried while on the body, simply by laying down to sunbathe for a few minutes.