What's this? Book review of Beach Beauties of the Meiji Period photo book.

Impressions: Attractive book showing just about all the Meiji-Period (1868-1904) postcards that were ever made showing swimsuit beauties. The book also includes a few swimsuit postcards/photos made in the Taisho Period (1912-1926) and early Showa Period (1926-1989). You can see how the swimsuit fashion changed over the years.

The author assembled a fine collection for this book. Most pictures are in color, showing the hand-tinted coloring of the cards. Most photos on the postcards were taken in the studio. Only a few were actually taken at the beach. Meiji-Period swimsuits were one-piece outfits with horizontal stripes. The top was a buttoned, collarless shirt and the bottom was a pair of shorts. It looked more like summer pajamas. Sometimes the swimsuit was loose-fitting, and sometimes it looked skin-tight.

The models are usually posed in front of a studio background depicting a beach or ocean. A few of the girls have their hair down, and you can see how long their hair had to be to maintain the traditional hairstyle. Common props include straw hats, a wooden board (used as a floater or surfboard), a paddle, and towel. Early Showa-Period swimsuits show more leg (miniskirt-type swimsuit) and a variety of fabric patterns instead of just stripes.

This is the most complete collection of Japanese swimsuit postcards you'll ever see in a book. It is an excellent guide to any Japanese swimsuit postcards you may have. Each postcard has a short caption in Japanese and the rear portion of the book has some Japanese text explaining the history of Japanese swimsuits, beaches, hairstyles, etc. See two swimsuit photos from my postcard collection (which are also in the book). (Reviewed by Philbert Ono)

350-1