Less for Sea Than Seeing

For most of the people in the U.S., Christmas comes and goes without a flake of visible snow on the ground. In fact, dreaming of a white Christmas is about as far as many people get these days. The weather is still cold and bitter, but superfluously gruesome without the compensations of snow. So, although the holiday has traditionally been a time to gather the family round, more and more U.S. citizens now pack up their presents and head for a surer kind of white Christmas--the white sands of the Caribbean.

Those with the means may still gather the family round and take them along. But mostly the Yule flood is made up of "singles" and couples who look on home as only a place to sleep between working hours but not to spend holidays in. And they are packing the islands right up to the high-water mark. Pan American increased its seats to and from the Caribbean by 41% this year (to 26,000 a week), but so many people are there now that no seats are available coming back before Jan. 10. Late bookers found BOAC in the same merry fix. Puerto Rico had upwards of 75,000 visitors last weekend alone. Jamaica's bookings were up 25% from last year. The sun-seekers poured in with their presents already bought, and were prepared to sing Silent Night on Christmas Eve in the hotel lounge. But Yuletide was actually just something between high and low tide. The surf and sun were what mattered most.

And as they flopped on their backs in the sand or flipped a hand gently at a volleyball, the ladies were prettily previewing the season's resort bathing suits (see color pages).

Dressed Feeling. The display is spectacular. For fashion has moved in on bathing suits. Gone is the day when a girl needed only two suits--one to be worn while the other was drying. After all, a girl simply cannot be seen in the same old thing through ten straight days on the beach. And then if there is a cocktail party on the terrace alongside the pool (all ocean resorts these days come equipped with a pool, where the surf is never a problem and the water can be kept reliably warm), she needs something more glamorous than a black tank suit. "Women no longer should feel undressed in a bathing suit," says Margit Fellegi, designer for Cole. "After all, more and more social functions are centered around swimming pools and beach clubs. I try to make a woman feel lovely and elegant without making her aware of how naked she is."

One result is a range of materials--silver lame, brocades and sequins--that never used to be in the swim. Such suits usually come with matching culottes or jackets that can be donned in a jiffy. From pool to poolside cocktails is a quick dab with a towel and a snap of a waistband.

Another result is that, with such major designers as Bill Blass taking an interest, suits have taken on new subtleties of structure. "Several years ago, the thought was that any woman could be packed into a suit by way of girdling and boning, but today this is kaput," says Bette Beck, chief designer for Elisabeth Stewart. "It takes all the romance out of a swimming suit when a woman has to be pushed in here and held up there. Such a woman has a stamped-out look--very unsexy."

New Perspectives. The new designs use ingenuity to do what bones and girdling could not. They scorn the plain nude look. Instead, they are finding new ways to make their revelations. For the healthy inside look, both Cole and Stewart have contrived necklines that plunge full and wide. Rudi Gernreich, whose topless suit provided the industry with welcome publicity but negligible sales, has engineered the "bib" suit, which comes loosely up over the middle of the bosom, but leaves the outer reaches marginally exposed, offering a new perspective to the girl watcher who prefers to sneak a sidelong glance rather than risk a head-on stare.

Other designers have sought out other views. "We are finding that the way to expose is best done in not so vital areas," says Sidney Smilove, designer for Sea B, and he demonstrates what he means with cutout suits that will have men looking at places that never seemed interesting before. Some designers were exploiting the possibilities of netting, which coyly shams at concealing what it clearly reveals. "The back is sexually important, while the exposed navel is no longer news," proclaims Designer Bill Blass, whose backless halter for Roxanne is the halter of the season.

It is not for a round-shouldered girl; unless she keeps chest out and shoulders back, she may be left with nothing but a snorkel above the waist. As for the navel, Blass has taken inspiration from Mondrian to produce a white bikini banded in black and joined top to bottom by a single black band that covers the navel yet somehow makes the stomach seem even barer.

If some of the suits do not seem just the thing for setting Olympic swimming records, it merely goes to show that the '66 suits are less for the sea than the seeing. In a few, swimming is risky. And languid sunbathing is out, unless one does not mind oddly placed swatches of brown or being crosshatched under the net. If a tan is what you want, advises Vogue, that is something "to do first, naked."

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