In the mid-1980s, Bergasol advertised suntan oil in magazines and on billboards. Five minutes ago, I rummaged through my bag in an attempt to locate my phone, but by the time I did, I had forgotten whom I had intended to call. And if I go upstairs to retrieve something, I must whisper its name to myself. But I digress. Where am I now? Ah, yes. With advertisements for suntan oil that are still burned onto my retina decades later.
Two women wearing only silver bikini bottoms are seated at the pool’s edge. They are facing away from the camera, which is not impolite but certainly a bit provocative for the pre-Internet era. They are similar, even down to their golden, french-braided hair, with the exception that one is pale and the other is severely tanned.
The most memorable of the campaign’s taglines is the one where the pale woman asks, “£4.50 for suntan oil? That would purchase three champagne cocktails.” Her suntanned companion responds, “I never have to.”
According to this advertisement, obtaining a tan is the most competitive summer activity. I wasn’t gullible enough to believe that spending money on beauty products to avoid having to pay for my alcohol was a wise financial investment, but I took the she-who-tans-wins message to heart and have spent most of my summers since then obsessed with tanning.
This is because and even though my natural skin tone is the color of long-life skim milk. In a 2000 survey, fifty percent of Britons stated that returning with a tan was the single most significant reason for going on vacation.
As our understanding of the hazards of tanning has increased, the majority of reasonable individuals have abandoned tan worship. After I returned from Ibiza, a stylish fashion industry friend told me, “Jess, you are far too brown, don’t you realize?” I took it as a compliment, reader.
I am finally gaining my bearings. Seeing women on the red carpet with comparably light skin to mine who are not spray-tanned is encouraging. If Michelle Williams and Andie MacDowell do not need to be brown for Cannes, then perhaps I do not need to be brown for Latitude.
And the limited prism through which a tanning fetish views skin color — ignoring variety and assuming that everyone begins with white skin and seeks a “tropical” tint – gives me the creeps.
Tans are still a status symbol. It’s just that health and well-being are modern-era concepts. Therefore, sunbathing with a pia colada has become a vintage image, and influencers’ Instagrams are filled with images of hikes, visors, and salads. Tans became popular as poorly compensated work shifted from fields to factories and pale skin ceased to be a sign of leisure; nevertheless, they are now falling out of favor as the wrinkle-free midlife face becomes the trophy look.
However, what works with a tan has established several conventions for holiday attire. As a result, lengthy cover-ups are replacing shorts and bandeau tops on beaches as the tan becomes less popular. And there is no greater indication that tanning has fallen out of favor than the change from bikinis to one-pieces with crisscrossing straps.
Those Love Island-inspired swimsuits with cutouts at the abdomen or underboob would be a tan-line disaster. After overcoming my tan obsession, I’m all about the cover-up. I am undecided about the monokini with straps. However, perhaps I would feel differently if I had a tan?
