The swimsuit in Egypt went from relative obscurity in the 1920s and 1930s to an item of use among the upper middle class and elite in the 1940s. Advertising of the era between the revolutions (1922-1952) depicts bathing suits in advertisements for other products, e.g. film or soap, as early as the 1920s. Indeed the backbone of primary research for this paper includes advertisements, cartoons, and commentary from magazines, newspapers, and journals, e.g. al-Ithnayn wal-dunya, Ruz al-yusif, al-Ahram, al-Lata’if al-musawwara, al-Muqtatif, Nashr al-‘ilanat, al-Riyada al-badaniya,al-Mar’a al-jadida, Akhr al- sa’a, Bint al-nil, al-Sinama as well as memoirs and film. These journals include popular journals, women’s journals, newspapers, literary/scholarly journals, and specialized/topical journals. I have also examined regional journals; however, for this time period they are not relevant for this topic. Egyptian memoirs include Chafika S. Hamamsy’s Zamalek and Leila Ahmed’s Border Passage, as well as non-Egyptian (however resident) Edward Said’s Out of Place. Discussing Egyptian films, as well as American film in Egypt, particularly Esther Williams, will be pertinent to this topic. This paper will argue that as women became more visible publicly after the 1919 Revolution and more active in the public realm through commerce and education, new frontiers of display emerged. The beach and the club became two frontiers where women could experiment with new fashion, including the swimsuit, so prevalent in the “splashy” new Hollywood productions, e.g. with Esther Williams. World War II brought many elements together: Esther Williams no longer swam competitively, circumstances of the war confined Egyptians to the sporting club (rather than the shore), and American companies created new fibers for better swimsuits after the war. The swimsuit did not go unnoticed. Its most vocal critic was the Shaykh Abul Ayun, who himself became a target of criticism from those who enjoyed the new frontier.