Three blocks off the beach, the story of the bathing suit unfolds.

Here at the Wolfsonian-FIU Museum, an exhibit chronicles the suit's storied march through history, its rising star power and its profile -- literally shrinking from modest bloomeresque two-pieces with hems dangling at the knee to daring, barely-there bikinis.

Beauty on the Beach: A Centennial Celebration of Swimwear explores the mighty influence fashion design exerts over popular ideas of beauty and the body through the evolution, design and marketing of swimwear. It's a fitting display for the perpetually tanned city in which people place a high premium on looks.

``We live in a community that is so often defined by the beach and bathing culture. We wanted to get people thinking about what does `swimsuit' really mean,'' says museum director Cathy Leff. ``The swimsuits are a reflection of their times. They tell us stories about the culture from which they were created.''

And, they offer a thoughtful, if not quiet, glimpse of the changing social and cultural landscape. Look to the bookends: The bathing ``costumes'' created during the height of modesty, and the modern string bikini designed as the contemporary Feminist movement roared.

The exhibit features archival materials, mostly from Jantzen, a pioneer swimwear company celebrating its centennial next year.

``I was at a dinner party with Fannie Hanono [of Perry Ellis International], and discovered that they owned Jantzen and that they had an archive almost totally intact,'' Leff says. ``We knew we could look at this entity and tell stories about patents, technology, social attitudes and the women's suffrage and liberation movements. We used Jantzen as a case study.''

Beauty on the Beach -- which includes mostly women's swimwear, along with bathing caps, accessories, postcards, illustrations and advertisements -- begins in the earliest years of the 1900s.

In the century before, a trip to the beach was mostly about soaking or bathing rather than swimming. Victorian women took off layers and layers of dresses and petticoats only to re-dress in layers and layers of swimwear: white French cambric or muslin worn over trousers, even gloves to adhere to the social construct of the times.

A circa 1910 bathing costume on display consists of a chocolate wool smock dress with pantaloons, typically worn with stockings, shoes and a cap.

That year, Jantzen was founded as the Portland Knitting Company. The business later designed a ribbed-knit swimsuit for a Portland rowing team, becoming the early prototype for the modern bathing suit.

With the introduction of railroads, people began to flock to beaches for recreation. With that came the most marked shift in swimwear, a streamlined suit using elasticity technology.

For those interested in the pure fashion of bathing suits, dozens of suits are on display, ranging from T-back athletic style suits to those of made of shirred nylon lace and with scalloped embroidery. The Jantzen Golden Anniversary suit on display is even sewn with 24-karat gold coated thread. Miss America 1945 Bess Myerson is shown in a 1950s photograph wearing a fur bikini.

A collage of postcards depicts the ``bathing beauties'' -- symbolizing 20th-century idealized standards of glamour -- frolicking along popular beaches and resorts along the coast including Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale Beach and Atlantic City, N.J.

Near the entrance of the exhibit, a vintage black-and-white short video loops, showing a parade of women (and a few adorable toddlers) on the beach, each wearing the trendiest suit of their era: one-piece maillots, some cone-cupped. The narrator announces by decades the amount of skin exposed: In 1935, swimsuits generally covered 35 percent of the body; 28 percent in 1940; 24 percent in 1942. Today, coverage ranges from 14 percent to single digits.

Various marketing campaigns are also exhibited. Clever and cheeky, even seductive print advertisements tout the health benefits of swimming; introduce the Jantzen's red ``diving girl'' logo and highlight celebrity endorsements. Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana and Janet Leigh are among those captured in glamour shots wearing bathing suits.

`SUN STROKE STIMULUS'

The Wolfsonian also commissioned New York City-based fashion photographer Miles Ladin to create Sun Stroke Stimulus, a contemporary portrait of Miami Beach bathing culture, as a companion to Beauty on the Beach.

For nearly a week, Ladin absorbed the Miami Beach scene, from fabulous, exclusive hotel pools to the more democratic beaches.

``I walked away believing that this is a place that places a high priority on the excess of beauty,'' Ladin says. ``The bathing wear, especially for women, is to accentuate the tan and the body. And for the people attracted to Miami Beach, a great amount of effort is put into the body, whether it's through working out at the gym, [being] artificially enhanced or simply being young and beautiful.''

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