MIXED BATHING CLUBS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 41, 13 February 1912, Page 3

MIXED BATHING CLUBS.

PARISIAN SOCIETY’S LATEST CRAZE. , The latest thing in fashionable Paris is the swimming club, {where mixed bathing in qxcelsis is indulged in. There are two, if not three, which ate most exclusively’select and superbly managed. To be admitted as a ■guest one has not only to lie introduced by a : member, but vouched for by two of the committtee. Describing a visit to one of those clubs, the society gossip of the, Liverpool Post says: “You ring, and powder-headed footmen open the door. , Your stick and hat are taken, and you are us'herod into a large lounge, where members can read and smoke at pleasure. II ought to mention that this is a ‘cock and. hen’ club, and that ladies arc free .everywhere. AH smart French women in the best sets are cigarette smokers, and a few oven indulge in an occasional cigar,. J.?ast the card-rooms you descend to a. series of dressing-rooms surrounding a vast marble bath, the temperature of which In EugHs,h'jdpas is almost hot., .Therein uot only each afternoon, but also about .ten o’clock each evening, you dud mixed bathing indulged in by the uost exclusive people in Paris. Almost all the bathing costumes are of silk; people lounge, about enveloped' in gorgeous wrappers, 'smoking ind talking. Sometimes there is water polo, spnjothnea, acquatic sports ; always laughter and play in the water, always ; an air of half careless gaiety. The whole ‘scene is as gay as it is really innocent. Of course, bathing dressefe as sumptuous as ‘hose worn at Trouville or Dinard in August are not exactly the kind of tiling worn, say, in church. They ire conceived with some audacity, but .vith an entire absence of indecency. Hie frocks in one of the acts jof “Peggy” give quite a. good idea of the type of thing .worn ; 'but many of

.lie /wraps are expensive Japanese kimonos, with wonderful embroideries. One or two ladies, nowever, ifleeted the absolute .simple, with, less effect, for a Parisienne need's more dressing up than an Englishwoman, because her skin is not so good. Of course it is mixed bathing in excclis; 1 but then that is now acquiesced in everywhere on the Continent. Sometimes a man will assist a lady to climb on to one of the overhanging trapezes, and swing about before she slips into the water. A hidden band plays dance Vnnsic, and everybody talks to everybody else. "It is, indeed, in that general freedom that you find the safeguard against scandal. In London we have the sexaeparation of the Bath Club, and the male exclusiveness of the swimming bath of the Automobile. I do not believe that a imixed swimming club would ho a success in town, simply be-

cause there are too many other things going on. Parisian society is more leisurely than our own.”