TAMPA - Fifty years ago this week, Florida newspapers reported on a fashion revolution at the University of Florida.

The Women Students' Association announced that beginning May 15, 1958, "University coeds can wear Bermuda shorts anywhere on the campus at any time."

The Tampa Tribune noted that individual "faculty members may bar them [females] from their classes, however, if they feel the Bermudas are a disrupting influence."

The new regulations continued to ban short shorts on the Gainesville campus, plus knit or elastic sports clothes. T-shirts were also taboo.

Transgressors would be confined to the dormitory on Saturday nights. Second offenders would have to stay in both Friday and Saturday nights.

Gary R. Mormino