I don't remember any silk racers but seem to have a fellow sufferer in Crail as regards woollen trunks.
Just to compare, here are swimming shorts in Dubai 2011 and in Hawaii 1953 (Deborah Kerr being the actress I could not recall in the famous wet clinch with Burt Lancaster - From Here To Eternity).
http://www.thenigeriandaily.com/2011...orange-bikini/
(Bring back Burt I say - he also made The Swimmer in 1968 of course)