The Borat-ish ‘burkini’ edict that’s currently causing ripples of concern in a handful of council-run leisure centres is undoubtedly going to provide a lot of challenging design opportunities for fashionistas. Officials are attempting to bar both Muslim and non-Muslim swimmers from entering pools in normal swimming attire during certain sessions unless they comply with strict ‘modest’ Islamic dress codes. Modest dress code dictates that women be covered from neck to ankle (with headscarf) and men from navel to knee. ‘What Not To Wear’ on the beach seems to have unwittingly overtaken global warming as the contentious topic of conversation this summer.
Across the Channel, France is also in sartorial turmoil. The country that fought hard to champion topless sunbathing in the late Sixties as a symbol of feminist rights (and has subsequently prided itself on being the world’s capital of seaside semi-nudity) is suddenly facing a bit of a bikini backlash. Not only are the younger generation apparently being boringly bourgeois and rejecting the ‘monokini’, they’ve also managed to turn a simple sartorial choice into a political cause. It would seem breast is no longer best on the beach with only a skimpy 24 per cent of women finding it acceptable. Why? Because it’s not in keeping with their ‘new priorities’ and to wear one furthers the exploitive ‘cult of body sexualisation’. I blame the topsy-turvy, contradictory ideals attached to modern feminism. During the women’s lib movement in the Sixties and Seventies women fought for the right to dress (or undress) the same as men. Now that they can, it seems the majority don’t want to.
This confusion over swimwear is not just confined to women. About ten years ago I had the great wisdom to rent a farmhouse near Toulouse that I found in the classified section of The Spectator.
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