Studio portrait of Annette Kellerman, c 1907
This studio photograph shows the famous Australian swimmer and silent Hollywood film star Annette Kellerman wearing a very daring one piece swimsuit and posing with her hand gracefully outstretched. Kellerman produced several studio photographs of herself in different poses as illustrations for her book 'Physical beauty, how to keep it.', published by G H Doran Company in New York in 1918.
In her book How to Swim, 1918, she objected to the early heavy swimsuits of the late 1800s and early 1900s:
'The bathing girl of our popular beaches only a few seasons ago wore shoes, stockings and bloomers, skirts, corsets and a dinky little cap...There is no more reason why you should wear those awful water overcoats – those awkward, unnecessary, lumpy “bathing suits,” than there is that you should wear lead chains.'
Object no. 00029949
See our blog on Annette Kellerman: bit.ly/Jw0xm2
Studio portrait of Annette Kellerman, c 1907
This studio photograph shows the famous Australian swimmer and silent Hollywood film star Annette Kellerman wearing a very daring one piece swimsuit and posing with her hand gracefully outstretched. Kellerman produced several studio photographs of herself in different poses as illustrations for her book 'Physical beauty, how to keep it.', published by G H Doran Company in New York in 1918.
In her book How to Swim, 1918, she objected to the early heavy swimsuits of the late 1800s and early 1900s:
'The bathing girl of our popular beaches only a few seasons ago wore shoes, stockings and bloomers, skirts, corsets and a dinky little cap...There is no more reason why you should wear those awful water overcoats – those awkward, unnecessary, lumpy “bathing suits,” than there is that you should wear lead chains.'
Object no. 00029949
See our blog on Annette Kellerman: bit.ly/Jw0xm2