While the lido was described as bringing “modernism to the masses” on the British coast it was just the latest example of a trend that had been developing since Victorian times – transforming seaside towns into resorts for leisure and entertainment. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the fashion was for local authorities to build great piers stretching from the promenade out into the sea. The Eastbourne Pier, pictured here in May 1931, was erected between 1866 and 1870 to an ingenious design by Eugenius Birch, which saw the structure sitting on special cups allowing the supporting struts to “move” in bad weather. Arranged on the pier's 1,000-foot length were kiosks, a theatre, a ballroom and a camera obscura. 1931. (Photo by Aerofilms Collection via “A History of Britain From Above”)

Women perform a pole dancing routine during the national day celebration of “Urban Pole” dance along a street in Monterrey, Mexico, on June 9, 2013. (Photo by Daniel Becerril/Reuters)

A participant poses backstage before a drag queen competition during carnival festivities in Las Palmas on the Spanish Canary Island of Gran Canaria February 20, 2015. (Photo by Borja Suarez/Reuters)

A snow moon rears above a sycamore tree at Burrow Hill Cider Farm in Somerset, UK in the last decade of February 2024. (Photo by Jeff Overs/The Times)

Revellers watch as police officers dance in the street at the Notting Hill Carnival in west London, August 30, 2015. (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters)

Girls dressed in “Hanfu”, or Han clothing, prepare for an event to mark the traditional Qixi festival, the Chinese equivalent of Valentine's Day, at a park in Beijing, China, August 7, 2019. Chinese for “Han clothing”, “Hanfu” is based on the idea of donning costumes worn in bygone eras by China's dominant Han ethnicity. Some of the most popular styles are from the Ming, Song and Tang dynasties. Hanfu enthusiasts doubled to two million in 2018 from a year earlier, according to a survey by Hanfu Zixun, a popular community account on the Wechat social media platform. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)

“March 19, 2012 was the first rehearsal for the Victory Day Parade at the training ground in Alabino (near Moscow, Moscow Military District). Since the end of February troops and vehicles from various units and formations of the Armed Forces began arriving to Alabino training ground. The first rehearsal included only military vehicles. During the ride the average speed of vehicles is 12 km/h, the distance depending on the type of vehicle from 12 to 15 meters”. – Vitaly Kuzmin

Models backstage ahead of the St George New Generation show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia 2015 at Carriageworks on April 16, 2015 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)