Common Goods: Swimmingly

This is the single most glamorous shot of beach attire I've ever seen.

Those are some 1890s-era kids visiting the sea. I doubt they were there to swim, but doesn't that hat on the little Cate Blanchett lookalike make you yearn for fancy beach dress code? Maybe just once a year, or something. It would save us from having to see too much flesh coming out of too little spandex. Plus, they look like such little precursors to modern fashion shoots, those exercises in non-functional sartorial beauty. I love it.

This photo comes from the National Media Museum's photostream over at Flickr's Commons. Be sure to check out the rest of their stellar early photography collection.