Beachwear

From TheBestLinks.com

Beachwear refers to clothing suitable for being worn on a beach or urban beach. Beachwear usually falls somewhere between swimwear and what a person wears when fully clothed. In an indoor pool, for lane swim, bathers will typically wear lycra briefs (men) or lycra one-piece tanksuits (women), but on a beach, or especially on an urbeach, something more substantial is preferably worn. For men, this may consist of beach shorts that are long enough to almost come down to the knees, and sometimes beyond. For an urban beach, men will often wear dark colored shorts that have belt loops, e.g. perhaps with an integral belt made of nylon webbing. Such beach shorts look like regular outerwear, but are made of non-absorbent fabrics so that they will dry fast. Dark colors, such as black, blend well with warm-weather business attire, and also dry quickly in the sunlight, since the dark color absorbs light. Women's beachwear often consist of shorts and tank top.

For men, a simple solution to spontaneous visits to the urbeach is to wear dark coloured fast-dry shorts, together with a dress shirt (a shirt with a collar), and dress shoes. For beaching, simply doff the shirt and shoes. These black beach shorts have six large pockets, to hold keys, coins, credit cards, and other waterproof items. The integral belt, made of nylon webbing, ensures good load bearing capacity (the shorts don't fall down even when the pockets are full of tools such as vice grips, screwdrivers, etc., preferably made of stainless steel so they don't rust). Urban beach shorts dry quickly through sunbathing of the entire body on black granite, or other porous and dark surfaces typically found at urbeaches.

Transformability of beachwear and urban beachwear

Many people like to remain "beach ready", at all times, i.e. to wear something that can be spontaneously transformed into beachwear. For men, simply wearing, for example, black shorts that have an integral belt made of nylon webbing (rather than shorts that have a drawstring), together with a shirt that has a nice collar, allows them to transform from business attire (with the shirt) to beachwear, simply by removing their shoes and shirts. This allows spontaneous unplanned visits to a beach, which is especially useful for urban beaches that are usually located within the downtown business core of a city. Transformable beachwear makes lunch hour trips to the beach possible, reducing the need to find a place to change, and to carry additional sets of clothing, etc.. Good beach shorts will be mostly dry, quickly, during ten or 15 minutes of sunbathing on hot black granite or dark cement that also absorbs alot of the water. Because urban beaches usually have a roughly textured black surface, that absorbs both water and sun (and thus heats up), good beachwear can usually be dried while on the body, simply by laying down to sunbathe for a few minutes.

Survivability and safety benefits of urban beachwear

Transformability of urban beachwear tends to put one in a state of constant readiness for urban beaching, without any advance notice. Thus one is always ready-to-wash. This may be useful, for surviving a heatstroke, on a hot day, or simply being able to washdown in the event of an emergency. Moreover, it has often been said "wear clean underwear in case you get into an accident". In today's world of bioterror scares, urban beachwear, worn under regular clothing, may be the answer to otherwise embarrassing mass decontamination or stripdowns by fire departments or emergency responders, over-reacting to a strange-powder spill or hoax, or perhaps the real thing.

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