Maillot Cutout Defined
Maillots with holes in them are called maillot cutouts and are a recurrent swimsuit theme. Frequently they are intertwined with bellage, navelage, or other exposures. Their emergence in swimwear during the mid and late 1930s has reasons driven by the momentum of the shrinking maillot and by the pressure from the deux-pièces. Thus during the 1930s maillot cutout battled for market share of the belly. It eventually lost. This is a very rich morphogenesis and is studied more below.
After the bikini is invented and popularized--the late 1940s through the 1960s--the maillot cutout makes a comeback, only this time it is not about checking an uncovering; it is about joyous exhibitionism. This too is detailed herein.
The cutout is again revered during the 1980s, when a host of counter tension and counter intuitive maillot species erupt, filling new possibilities in the maillot space. Maillot genius, more correctly.
Finally, this article concludes with some analysis of the symmetrical vs asymmetrical designs, including several formal structures, e.g., front and back, left and right, up and down.
In the end the Bikini Scientist invites all Bikini Scientists to ruminate about the maillot cutout.
The Cutout Invention
Although cutouts have existed in theater costumes they are experimentally manifest in the late 1920s in swimwear, initially exposing the sides of the midriff (IM192510). By the mid 1930s the exposure is more formalized (CB3E50, EG3410, CC3410); these and later models are brought together during the late 1930s bellage leading indicator.
Swimsuit designer Claire McCardell is often credited as playing a major roll in the development of the maillot cutout. Legend has it she attacked a maillot with scissors and cut it in half, but that theory produces a deux-pièces, and not a maillot cutout. Another says she cut the maillot away at the back, arching the sides in like we see in EG3410 and CC3410 and in this Jantzen ad of 1935 (JZ3550). But that is too simple: McCardell spins the focus around, she opens up the sides, constrains a set of strap options, and tickles the notion of connection, a.k.a., a fastening detail.
In short she comes up a whole new design; this certainly involves scissors, but what McCardell did was to cut fresh cloth. This is not a hack job.
There is another kind of cutout that may be confused with the McCardell/Jantzen history because it too does indeed suggest scissors. This design does indeed cut out an isosceles triangle below the breasts. But this silhouette does not emerge until later in the decade, and then by a different designer, Margit Fellegi of Cole (CC39AA). The missing panel lies just above the waist and is by reinforced seams (VL4007).
A more arty and slightly different though is seen in this design that streamlines the straps ( (CC39BB).
As the thirties progress the area of the cutout continues to expand, and by the end of the decade most of the belly is exposed as reflected in this chart (BSD8830). At this juncture the top and bottom separate completely, and with the advent of the deux-pièces the maillot cutout becomes extinct (AW4910). It remains so until the 1960s.
The Sixties Revival
In the 1960s the cutout is reinvented as swimsuit designers grapple with alternatives to bikini minimization. Cutouts provide a way to transfer some of the very brief bikini exposures back to the one piece. But a return to foundations is not a part of this rediscovery, and the sixties cutout is stretchy and prone to overexposure.
Seventies influences include the use of crochet (RS7104), strings (FR8401), narrow vertical slit holes (E7401), and backless front-connected styles (RS7001).
The Eighties Revival
In the early 1980s, after the rising legline and descending armhole collide side-tensioning is discovered and plays an important role in the maillot high-legline. Maillot cutout is a natural benefactor of these new dynamics and makes still another reemergence. The 1980s cutouts fit the body more tightly, and the progressively larger, often asymmetrical holes make classification uncertain (N198506). Some designers elect to punch out multiple holes (N198501), others slit the belly. The 1980s cutout tends to follow tension lines and bikini cuts (FI8818). Belly opens up, and the lower waistlines leave the navel exposed, quite unlike the 1935 McCardle designs, where the waistline remained high.
Cutouts in the 1990s often appear in strange places (M92521). And in the 1990s it is natural for maillot cutout to fuse with maillot tanga in all possible variations (FL8717, AB199343). Another 1990s tendency is to employ multiple colors of fabric to create maillots which elude some of their coverage (HE90019).
Front and Back Cutouts
As observed above and detailed in the late 1930s chronology, the most primitive cutout is a triangle cutout above the waist (CC39AA, VL4007) or to the two sides of the midriff (EG3410).
In the 1960s the rigid triangle is gone; what emerges is a rounded navel hole cutout, surrounding and often centered around the belly button. Obviously such a hole may vary in diameter (AB199343) and is intimately tied to the 1960s fascination with navelage. The late 1980s influence of the v-kini stretches the hole downward into a vertical oval (FI8818) that encroaches upon hairage.
Sometimes a second oval echoes the first, possibly placed higher and exposing the breastbone (E7401). The size of this hole controls cleavage. A hole or holes in the front may also resonate with a hole or holes in the back (AB199343).
A long-standing alternative to front-and-back cutouts are lateral cutouts at the sides of the waist (RW197010). Side exposures result when material connects at the front and/or back of the body instead of at the sides.
Side cutouts can range from a small oval bounded by a bow tie (SP198610), to progressively larger (SS196810) and larger (SS198410) exposures with a very narrow connections.
Side cutouts can connect the top and bottom in both the front and the back (SS196810), in the back only (rare), or in the front only (RS7001, RS7104, FI8307, FR8401). This allows the braver to display posterior rugage (CK6810). In lieu of a narrow strip of fabric, the front connection between the top and the bottom may also incorporate a ring (BZ6805, again CK6810) or a fastening device (FI8815). The fastener, such as bow tie, may be real or illusionary, and it suggests the subject is wearing a halter and briefs that are fastened together (Woodward in Strick).
The 1980s side exposures exploit cross-tensioned lines, and have play from the underside of the breast to the hipbone. They may be bow tied or ringed; strapless, x-backed, shoulder-strapped, or halter-tied; d&eacent;colletage, high-leglined; and/or high-waistbanded (fig. 30-5).
Still another alternative is sweeping asymmetrical cutout holes, which are cutout completely around the body save for a connecting fabric at one side. These may also expose navel, back, buttocks, or cleavage (Best of Life). Asymmetrical maillot cutouts may be open on either the left () or right (FI8321, RP8507, RP8811). Asymmetrical cutouts also excite asymmetrical tops (KA8310). The amount of the cutout can vary from a small hole on the side of the body to a swimsuit from which the middle has been cut almost completely around the body (C198440), or which curves around the body (N198506, CS8610). These cutouts combine with asymmetrical top on the opposite side (TC8810, CI9210).
Necklines and Leglines
In general the cutout need not limited by the overall silhouette of the maillot, although tanks, halter ties (RP8811), and strapless (FI8321, RP8507, JE8904, NYT198410, fig. 30-5) necklines each affect the cutout in unique ways. For example, compare two asymmetrical sideways v-kinis shown here in strapless and halter ties (fig. 30-7).
Leglines can range from the straight leg of the 1950s to the v-leg of the 1980s or tanga (AB199343).
Multiple holes are another cutout alternative, with the holes either in the front (N198501), or side (M199310) or both (DB8707). Three holes in the front demarcate the lower pelvis, ribs, and cleavage (KP8901). The smaller the holes the more of them there can be, but this process can reach an extreme (PI198810). One could argue that the extreme case of multiple holes is the fishnet, but it is generally agreed that fishnet maillots, despite their many small holes, do not constitute the cutout species. The difference is that fishnet is a weave, a fabric, and not a hole cut from the fabric. This difference between the hole being woven into the fabric vs. being cutout from the swimsuit convey different information to the voyeur.
Species Definition Questions
The exact definition of just what constitutes a maillot cutout species continues to be debated among bikini scientists.
The pretzel appears at first glance to be a maillot cutout, but a more careful examination reveals that it is its own species, largely because its exposures are the result of tensioned fabric, and not the result of fabric that has been cut out of the garment.
Likewise the maillot sarong (the wrap), and the various cross-tensioned miokini silhouettes (including the sidering and x-side) are subject to interpretation, but they too are classified as independent species. They, like maillots which include fasteners between a soutien-gorge and culotte share an origin as deux-pièces joined together rather than a maillot with fabric excised (fig. 30-8A). Nor should cutouts be confused with the suspender maillot, which is actually comprised of a suspender culotte and a top, the T-front, or with the x-back (FI8816).
A cutout in the purest sense is just that: fabric which has been cut out of the swimsuit to facilitate exposure.