Years before bikini inspectors patrolled Gold Coast beaches "measuring bikinis while women wore them, walking around", Queensland was so prudish that male swimmers had to cover their chests before they hit the water.
Freedom Then, Freedom Now, an exhibition at the State Library of Queensland, reveals what men were expected to wear while swimming and more, exploring the freedoms Queenslanders have gained and lost over the years.
The exhibition also shows publications that were deemed too rude for Queenslanders including The Little Red Schoolbook, a book about sex education that was banned by the government in 1972.
Gavin Bannerman, executive manager of Queensland Memory at SLQ, said some people would be "genuinely shocked" by how recently some of the state's freedoms were won.
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"If you look at things now they're actually fairly tame really, but a lot of things were restricted because they were considered too elicit or too shocking," Mr Bannerman said.
"Things like a Playboy magazine, or there was a publication called The Little Red Schoolbook which was considered subversive ... current standards today in terms of what the public can read and what's too rude, that's changed significantly."
As well as images of Paula Stafford, a Gold Coast bikini designer, Mr Bannerman said they had a video from the 1960s that showed just how strange beach dress codes used to be.
"It's film footage from a news report from the ABC of beach bikini inspectors deeming what is and isn't appropriate for women to wear on the beach, so they're measuring bikinis while women wore them, walking around," he said.
"It's got this really weird vibe to it, it forces you to ask yourself, 'Did this actually even happen?' "
Running alongside Freedom Then, Freedom Now is Don't Count Us, Let Us Count!, in commemoration of the 1967 Referendum on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights.
Included in the exhibition is the suitcase of Indigenous rights' activist Lambert McBride, a Bundjalung, Yugambeh and Mulinjari man who was instrumental in gaining public acceptance for the need for a referendum on Indigenous rights.
"He was quite an articulate spokesman and he was involved in that long-fought effort for recognition, and he travelled around physically with the suitcase with this material," Mr Bannerman said.
"In effect, he was kind of doing what people online would be doing from their phone now in terms of sharing information but in an early '60s kind of way.
"The fact that we've got the suitcase - that is physically actually the suitcase he carried around - that's quite a powerful object."
The two exhibitions, Freedom Then, Freedom Now and Don't Just Count Us, Let Us Count! are running at the State Library of Queensland until October 1.