A swimmer competes during the UK Cold Water Swimming Championships at Tooting Bec Lido in south London January 24, 2015. (Photo by Luke MacGregor/Reuters)

Performers dressed as zombies arrive to the pier of the Excelsior Hotel on September 6, 2021 during the 78th Venice Film Festival at Venice Lido. (Photo by Yara Nardi/Reuters)

Brazilian model Alessandra Ambrosio arrives at the pier of the Excelsior Hotel on August 31, 2022, on the opening day of the 79th Venice International Film Festival at Lido di Venezia in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Tiziana Fabi/AFP Photo)

The London Cabaret Club on August 26, 2022 getting in the mood for Notting Hill carnival weekend will host to a Brazilian Fantasy Dance Company Festival ,with the colors and music of Carnival. (Photo by Paul Quezada-Neiman/Alamy Live News)

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”)

Dancers of the Moulin Rouge cabaret adjust their boots prior to a show on April 22, 2014 in Paris. Since 1945, the “Maison Clairvoy” is specialised in the creation of luxury shoes and started in 1960 a collaboration with the famous Moulin Rouge to create boots and shoes for French Cancan dancers. (Photo by Franck Fife/AFP Photo)

An actor performs during the show “Paris de Nuit” in Santiago, Chile, 20 September 2016. The show is a combination of cabaret and circus, produced by the Recirquel Contemporary Circus Company from Budapest, and will be performed at the Mapocho Cultural station from 20 to 25 September. (Photo by Mario Ruiz/EPA)

Three cabaret dancers sit glum-faced in the Windmill Theatre's canteen upon hearing the news that the theatre's owners have sold out to a cinema company, on October 02, 1964. The theatre, which was the first to include nudity in its shows, has been able to cope with competition from a growing number of West End strip clubs. (Photo by Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)