A Brief Cultural History of

Sun Tanning

Coco Chanel sunbathing

When a lithe ‘It-Girl’ Coco Chanel stepped off a yacht in

Cannes with an accidental suntan in 1923, many would
argue it was the moment that sunbathing became a
cultural phenomenon. Porcelain-skinned flappers
everywhere were intrigued by this rebellious new
suntanned look sported by the Parisian designer; one that
for centuries had been associated with the working class
that spent most of their days working outside and
exposed to the sun. In Europe and many other parts of the
world, fair skin had long been revered as an indication of
one’s social status. At this point in history however, skin
was now on display perhaps more than ever before in
modern western civilisation. With hemlines getting
scandalously higher, sleeves boldly slashed, bonnets
binned and the coy parasols of the past trashed, women
were starting to discover the physical and mental health
benefits of a little sun exposure. More and more, “sunlight
therapy” was prescribed for almost every ailment from
fatigue to tuberculosis. For those who were rich enough,
they were also playing more sports and spending more
leisurely time at the seashore while on the other end of
the spectrum, labourers were moving inside to factories.
All standards of beauty are socially-constructed in some
way by society, and sunbathing culture has been yo-yoing
goes back and forth with it for centuries.
Let’s start with the beautiful tomb paintings of Ancient
Egypt and mosaics of Ancient Greece and Rome –
regiments of perfect figures, deliberately sized and
aligned in status, but also tinted differently to depict
various traits, as well as separate the sexes. The women
are always shown paler than the men, indicative of a little
more time spent indoors and away from manual labour in
the fields. But for men, darker skin was a suggestion of
bravery and military service while lighter skin indicated
weakness. Aristotle wrote that “those whose skin is too
light are […] cowardly: witness women”. (It should come as
no surprise that Aristotle was also just a little bit sexist).
Following the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th
century, the brutality of the dark ages and the pestilence
of the Middle Ages rather put a damper on tanned skin.
The fall of castles and rise of country houses in the 16th
century saw the re-adoption of the classical world’s skin
manifesto. In hindsight, this was a rather extreme
application of the doctrine, potions of lead, arsenic
whitening and even leeches were readily applied to the
skin to feign idle richness. Being touched by the sun was
most unfortunate and unfashionable.
Rogier van der Weyden, Portrait of a Lady, c. 1460, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon
Collection, 1937.1.44

“The European Renaissance was particularly notorious for

its blatant colorism”, writes Jeena Sharma for Paper
Magazine. “If you thought today’s Instagram Influencers
were setting up damaging beauty standards, Queen
Elizabeth I, also referred to as ‘The Virgin Queen,’ believed
in enhancing the outward appearance of her “virtue” by
painting her face flat white, like a ghost”.

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For the rich and powerful in the 18th and 19th centuries,
the Grand Tours of Europe and expanding empires
transported white folks to warm and “exotic” seaside
locations, returning with a suntan as a badge of their
leisurely pursuits. Following the sun became a more
wholesome and healthy pursuit, whether it was Robert
Louis Stevenson needing the medicinal Caribbean air or
Lord Byron requiring his Italian pleasures.

The cast of A Room with a View in the Italian sunshine

Women of the Victorian and Edwardian upper classes still
ensured to cover up all their exposed bits with head-to-
toe ensembles however; gloves, hats and sported
parasols to ensure their pallid complexions didn’t incur a
single freckle or worse still, a sun-kissed blush. The
poisonous lead and arsenic-based cosmetics from the
17th and eighteenth centuries were still very much in use.
Science would change all that and soon, the deadly
application of whitening arsenic and lead potions in would
be replaced with an equally deadly ritual of total emersion
in the sun’s radiation.
Electric baths of yesteryear

A series of milestones heralded the establishment of the

undisputed health benefits of the rays of the sun. By
1890, Theobald Palm discovered just how crucial sunlight
was for bone development in children and in 1891, John
Harvey Kellogg (yes, he of the corn flake) developed the
‘incandescent light bath’ (which incidentally helped to
cure King Edward VII’s gout). In 1903, Niels Fitzen
received the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his ‘Finzen Light
Therapy’ that was hailed a miracle cure for rickets (a
Vitamin D deficiency) and Lupus Vulgaris, amongst other
diseases. When a scientific expedition set off to Tenerife
to test the merits of ‘heliotherapy’ in 1910, sunbathing was
unanimously declared a sensible pastime for the upper
crust.
Institute for Radiation Therapy in London

The first rays of a new sun culture splashed across the

Mediterranean shores when the rather bold American
millionaire couple, Gerald and Sara Murphy came down
from dull Paris to the sparkling French Riviera in 1921.
Traditionally, Mediterranean France shut up shop in the
summer, which was once considered the off-season,
would you believe it!

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Gerald and Sara Murphy
But then came Gerald and Sara; seasoned socialites,
athletes, exhibitionists and nudists. Such was their
meteoric impact on high society, they persuaded the local
hotels to stay open over summer in 1923 – for the first
time ever. Relentless entertainers of high society, the
great and the good were summoned: Ernest Hemingway,
Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, Dorothy Parker, Pablo
Picasso, Jean Cocteau, F Scott Fitzgerald and of course
Coco Chanel. All this hit the papers, gossip abounded and
being caught in the flesh by the sun was now a
requirement.

The Mad Beach Party of 1923

But for the aspirational fashionista, the vanity factor of

soaking up the rays was now about more than just being
healthy and staving off tuberculosis. A watershed moment
occurred when influential Vogue magazine featured a
suntanned model on their front cover in 1927. A new
beauty standard was set. And to cement this new trend,
Scott Fitzgerald published Tender is the Night in 1934,
with its protagonists draping their gorgeous, sun-kissed
bodies all over beaches on the French Riviera.
Suntanning was now firmly established as a tell-tale sign
of being posh, privileged and beautiful. In Paris,
entertainment’s new darling, Josephine Baker, further
bolstered the desire for being ‘olive-skinned’, with women
from all over idolizing her sultry “exotic” looks. Designer
Jean Patou perfectly clocked the zeitgeist and in 1927
gave the obsessed populace Huile de Chaldee, the first
mass-produced sun tan oil. An article from a 1929 issue
of Harper’s Bazaar showed how being suntanned was
now a serious cosmetic consideration, ‘Shall We Gild the
Lily? There Is a Technique to a Good Tan—Whether by
Fair Means or Fake!’
By 1930, magazines glamorised the plight of patients
recuperating in the sun at stunning Swiss sanatoriums. By
the 1940s, the media widely flaunted sunbathing as a
pastime, with one-piece swimsuits shrinking and
separating to become bikinis (the first modern bikini made
its appearance in 1946). Baby oil was used to grease skin
for better tanning during the 50s, and the first self-tan
(‘Tan Man’) appeared, albeit with a decidedly orange
result. An advertisement surfaced in 1953, Coppertone’s
little bronzed, blonde girl with her spaniel pulling down her
pants to reveal milky white skin.
With the availability of commercial air travel and colour
film in the 1960s, the average British punter of modest
means indulged and ventured off to sunny Spain and
France and could return with hard evidence. From the
days of empires, their overseas contingents were well
aware of the harmful effects if over exposed, but alas this
never percolated down to the later mass holiday
makers. In 1962, sunscreen became SPF-rated but in
1970 quirky innovations like ‘tan-through’ swimwear
became available, with fabric covered in thousands of
micro-holes to let through the light and guarantee an all-
body, even tan to avoid dreaded tan-lines.

When the first energy crisis hit in the 1970s, products for
self-tanning, Coppertone’s self-tan and the like, were
essential alternatives to perpetuate the illusion of sunny
travel. In 1972, Barbie emerged with tanned skin and her
own sun specs and suntan lotion. No-sun sunbeds
became a global multi-billion-dollar industry, as well as
bronzers, accelerators and intensifiers. The 1980s saw a
cosmetic boom and together with cheap package
holidays to the Mediterranean, tanning remained a focal
point of being on holiday.

So where are we today? Fashion contributor for The

Guardian, Jess Cartner-Morley, writes than sun-
worshipping is once again fading from culture. “Tans are
still about status. It’s just that health and wellbeing are
flexes of the modern era. Which means lying on a
sunlounger with a piña colada has become a retro image,
and influencers’ Instagrams are all hikes, visors and
salads.” Indeed, SPF products have become an essential
among Gen Zers and Millenials as beauty influencers
flaunt their favourite suncreens on social media as part of
their skin care regimes and tutorials. At the same time
however, anti-sunscreen sentiment has also become a
hot-button topic on platforms like TikTok where
influencers have been controversial campaigns
concerning the industry’s use of chemical ingredients
including oxybenzone. One thing seems certain: the yo-yo
of tanning culture looks set to continue while humans are
at the whim of social norms, status and of course, the all-
powerful media.

Words by Cecile Paul

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