Chemise at Sea

Of all women's clothes, the bathing suit has worn best through the ups and downs of high fashion; 1947 brought the Bikini, and no one has quite been able to top that. But last week, as it has come to dresses, coats, suits and negligees, the chemise came to bathing suits.

Almost every top bathing-suit designer has an entry in the new line (see cuts). Cole of California, which grew fast on suits to let in the sun, is adding two chemise bathing suits that keep it out as effectively as any Gay Nineties rig. Designer Rose Marie Reid is putting a complete collection of voluminous prints and stripes with "stay-down legs" and tummy-hiding overblouses into 4,800 U.S. stores; Manhattan's Margaret Pennington, who specializes in hand-loomed suits, is selling 500 chemise swim suits monthly to such high-fashion stores as California's I. Magnin and Manhattan's Bonwit Teller.

No one expects the chemise to take over completely. But it may well prove a boon to the girl with the less-than-perfect figure who wants to conceal, rather than reveal, on the beach--and a bore to the men who have to look at it.

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