Clothing Definitions — definitions of garments and clothing terms from Apparel Search
Beachwear refers to clothing suitable for being worn on a beach or an urban beach. It usually falls somewhere between swimwear and what a person wears when fully clothed. This page explains what that middle ground looks like in practice — beach shorts for men, often long enough to almost reach the knees and made of non-absorbent, fast-drying fabric, and shorts with a tank top for women — and traces the category's history to the railway age, when rail travel first brought large numbers of people to coastal regions and created the need for dedicated beach clothing.
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.
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.
An advantage of wearing beachwear underneath regular clothing is the facilitation of quick and easy change of clothing. For example, when a changeroom is not available, beach shorts worn under regular trousers make it easy to change from dress slacks to jeans, or vice versa, such as when changing in a parking lot, at one's vehicle, or in a similar public space.
Beachwear is not necessarily used for swimming or bathing, and may be just used for lounging around a beach, therefore not needing to necessarily be hydrodynamic or fast-drying.
This category of clothing is often worn during the summer months. Learn more about summer fashion.
Beachwear thus exists along a hierarchy of formality as follows:
swimwear (most hydrodynamic and thus often most minimal, except for full body suits)
bathwear for bathing, soaking, or possibly moderate swimming
formalwear or black tie, white tie or Mess dress
Beachwear is clothing suitable for being worn on a beach or urban beach, falling somewhere between swimwear and what a person wears when fully clothed. It is clothing for the beach setting itself, not necessarily for swimming, so it need not be hydrodynamic or fast-drying.
For men, beachwear often consists of beach shorts long enough to almost come down to the knees, made of non-absorbent fabrics that dry fast. Women's beachwear often consists of shorts and a tank top. Dark colors blend with warm-weather attire and dry quickly in sunlight.
The invention of the railway, and the spread of rail travel in the mid-1800s, made it possible for large numbers of people to visit coastal regions. Previously people had often bathed nude; the new popularity of the coasts created a need for beachwear as a recognized category.