Some Fluffy Women in Victorian Photos

These photos show that in that in the early part of the twentieth century it was still quite common-place for women not to shave their armpits. There are some topless shots and some nudity.

1912 Australian Olympic Swimming Champions

First Movie Nude Scene 1915

The firstleading actress Audrey Munson appears in a nude scene in the 1915 film Inspiration. Those armpits seem to have hair.

Painting of a Woman with hairy armpits

Young Women on the Beach 1915

A group of young women on the beach at Newhaven in 1915. It is certainly acceptable for one girl in the group to have clearly visible underarm hair.

The Alameda Mermaid

The Alameda Mermaid – Nell Schmidt.

Nell Schmidt, the first woman to swim across San Francisco Bay (1912), was from Alameda. This photo was probably taken during 1912 and shows Nell with unshaven armpits.

The Bathing Beauties

The first moviemaker to show the feminine armpit extensively in non-pornographic films was Mack Sennett, in his Bathing Beauty movies. Early movie stars like Theda Bara and Mack Sennett’s Bathing Beauties shaved their legs and armpits, supposedly because Sennett preferred that look.

The First Advert for a Female Shaving Product

 

 

It began with the May,1915 edition of Harper’s Bazaar magazine that featured a model sporting the latest fashion. She wore a sleeveless evening gown that exposed, for the first time in fashion, her bare shoulders, and her (shaved) armpits. Shocking at first, this soon caught on. At the same time a marketing executive with the Wilkinson Sword Company, which made razor blades for men, designed a campaign to convince women that underarm hair was unfeminine. By 1917 the sales of razor blades doubled as women conformed to this feminine stereotype of shaving under their arms.