I was on my way somewhere else. Not Fort Lauderdale “Action City USA”, as advertised on this beachfront postcard. I was really just listing some Summer Vacation postcards online, as I like my sales to be reflective, or a little ahead, of the season. And, anyway, I didn’t have all that much to sell that fit in with the Quarter Millennium. (OR the Back to School Sales, which started around the first of July, as retail selling seasons do not mirror postcard seasons. In fact, my first Christmas commercial for 2026…where were we?)
Anyway, believe it or not, I was actually looking at the feet of those bikini bunnies on the first card, especially after I saw THIS beach card. My third thought, following close on “THAT guy’s got big feet and hers are so small: how appropriate.”) was “Why is she wearing those heels at the beach?”
Checking through inventory, I found that this was a definite fashion at md-century. Women who wore bikinis to enjoy the sun and spectacle on the sands tended to sport stylishly high heels.
My time on beaches has been minimal, but I cannot recall a lot of ladies in heels. Most of my swimsuit experience has been at swimming pools, and I don’t remember women wearing heels with bikinis THERE, either. We could assume I was looking somewhere else, and we would probably be correct, but this does lead to a secondary question: are heels less practical on sand or on wet concrete?
Especially the really remarkable heels worn by these ladies. (I do not wish to criticize the ogling style of my fellow man, but for someone admiring the view, doesn’t he seem to be staring at her hand? To each his own, but, really….)
And this is not merely a custom of the mid-century cartoonist. This Maggie impersonator and her high-button heeled shoes was setting the style a decade or so earlier.
Now, if you are one of those hostile, negative, critical souls (yeah, the thought leapt to MY mind) you might be assuming that this is simply a convention for those cartoonists who couldn’t draw feet. But Walt Munson has here given both the boys bare feet but given the lady heels. Maybe if Mom had had feet like Dad’s, it would violate her general air of fashion, but an ability to draw toes cannot be doubted in this case.
And if the thought occurred that maybe it was a matter of cliché, that drawing a sexy model demanded high heels, here we have a bevy of beauties in flats.
In fact, the only thing flat about THIS young beach bunny are those shoes.
If you were going to complain that SKINNY models never wear flats, we can cover that thought as well, however little we cover otherwise.
In fact, we even have bathing beauties going barefoot. There may, in fact, be no more reason for any swimsuit model’s feet beyond artistic preference. Maybe some artists didn’t like drawing feet, and maybe some artists preferred to produce women in heels. The matter COULD have been dictated by editors at the postcard company, too. Alas, not every phenomenon, despite Sigmund’s insistence otherwise, has some erotic explanation.
Though I have a feeling the artist who gave this barefoot bather an ankle bracelet was responding to some inner call. Without data, however, further investigation will require the perception of a Sherlock Holmes. (There. And you thought I couldn’t get through this article without saying “The game is a foot.”)
Blogsy Babbles 