Securing a Place in the Sun: Clothing, Exposure, and Health

In the early twentieth century, sunbathing swelled in popularity in England as doctors and reformers touted the health benefits of ultraviolet rays. These advocates ran into trouble, however, when it came to the question of how much skin one should show. To remedy this concern, companies marketed a variety of consumer products to deliver the sun’s benefits while preserving modesty. This included Celanese fabric, an artificial silk whose main selling point was the ability of ultraviolet light to pass through the material, which promised to help its wearer ‘secure a place in the sun’ without indecency. Building on scholarship relating to ‘diseases of darkness’, sun culture, and race in twentieth-century Britain, this chapter focuses on Celanese fabric as curative. The material and its marketing sought to promote consumers’ well-being through the action of the sun upon the skin as well as through emulation of the upper classes and their ability to travel to lidos and health spas. The veneration of tanned skin also highlighted turn-of-the-century ideas about race, objectifying dark skin and connecting whiteness to technological mastery over nature. Celanese products thereby promoted a specific type of well-being that ameliorated anxieties relating to class, race, and national belonging.