LIFE Magazine, January 18, 1937

The ladies and gentlemen on these pages were all photographed while vacationing at Palm Beach in 1921. Their pictures were run in the rotogravure sections, displayed in much the same style as they are here. Plucked from the “morgue” of one picture agency, they look funny today beside the Palm Beach socialites appearing in the current “rotos.” But let the snickers remember that in 15 or 20 years the 1937 Palm Beachers will look just as funny as these 1921 ones do now. Sixteen years ago in front of Palm Beach’s most fashionable hotel, The Breakers, a lady bather wore a dress of taffeta or satin over black jersey tights. Stockings were compulsory though sometimes rolled down to the knee. Not until 1924 was the one-piece bathing suit less than a shocking novelty.