Where to Find Cheap 50’s Bathing Suits

If you, like many retro enthusiasts, are looking to purchase cheap 50’s bathing suits, it will require some “digging” to find the “diamonds in the rough”, but they are out there on the Web to be found. Many people love the classic look of the 1950’s bathing suit, and for some, it reminds them of simpler times. One of the standout differentiating things about a 50’s bathing suit is the style in which it is cut; the most common design was that the suit would be cut in a straight line across the top of the legs; it didn’t have rising sides like most of today’s bathing suits have. Also, the bathing suits of the Fifties were primarily one-piece affairs; not many women braved the bikini in those days, and it was far more common to sport the all-in-one “sheath” look over the two-piece. Back then, the bikini was somewhat out of favor as far as taste was concerned; it was marginalized as somewhat “risqué”, so the one-piece was the most common bathing suit of choice back then. The bikini didn’t really make its big splash (no horrible pun intended) until the 1960’s. Most of the bathing suits of that the 50’s were comprised of either cotton or nylon fabric, and they many times had floral prints or solid color prints. The look of the average 1950’s bathing suit was much like a corset, as the overall style of fashion back then was far more conservative than in today’s times.

So retro swimwear is definitely the “in” thing now, especially with the advent of uber-popular shows like “Mad Men”. Everyone seems to want to get their hands on a vintage bathing suit nowadays, and therefore, with increased demand comes an increase in the price of the supply (remember the Cabbage Patch Kids of the 1980’s?). So, it can become difficult to find a vintage 50’s bathing suit for any kind of reasonable price. I can say this, too, that many of the big retailers online like Wal-Mart and Target for instance, don’t carry anything even remotely close to vintage 50’s swimwear, so it can be a hurdle to find a good bathing suit at a decent price. Often it’s only the “boutique” type shops on the Web that offer these bathing suits, and honestly, it’s not uncommon to find these types of bathing suits running for over 100 dollars. I have seen some websites such as esther-williams.com that have what I believe to be relatively inexpensive prices on vintage 50’s swimwear. Also try popinaswimwear.com for some decent prices too. One site that I believe has some of the best prices going is unique-vintage.com; I saw several 50’s-style bathing suits on their site running for around the 60 to 75 dollar range, so that’s a pretty good deal overall. They also had some cool designs, including the ever-popular polka dot style (you can’t get more vintage than that). This is definitely an area where you will have to do a lot of digging around on the Web, but the deals are out there if you are willing to exhaust the search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing) for answers. Hope this has helped someone…see you next time!