What Next?

(Or....How Far is Far Enough?)

An interesting sidelight of the New Zealand Surfriding Championships held in Gisborne during Easter was the minibikini (sometimes referred to by the "in" group as the "figleaf"). A sample, worn by one of the visiting female competitors, is pictured.

Statistically speaking, the trend of female beach attire over the past decade is of more than passing interest. Ten years ago, when a bikini was still an atoll somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, a two-piece swimming suit with a midriff gap of about five inches was considered "daring". Today this gap has widened to 12 inches or more.

Bird-watchers who are good at figures can work out for themselves that this represents an "advance" of approximately three-quarters of an inch per annum, and that the boom in beach popularity should reach its peak in the early 1970's.

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