A Very Brief History of Men’s Swimwear.

[sebbie]

A Very Brief History of Men’s Swimwear.

I was thinking about some very iconic photos of guys in swimwear, some having been turned into posters that were widely sold, and came up with four that are particularly interesting. I think I am limited to 2 small attachments but I will put the ones I did not get loaded in a reply.

Photo 1 is the classic poster shot of Mark Spitz after he had won 7 gold medals in the 1972 Olympics. This shot got a lot of attention, but note that the brief is not actually that brief. The sides look to be about 4 or maybe even 4 1/2 inches. At the same time the Australians were wearing briefs with narrower sides, but in the US that shift did not happen that fast. This poster adorned a lot of rooms. Unlike most other swimmers, Spitz had a mustache. I think it was the combination of the mustache and the Speedo® that did it. Spits also was a key in the wearing of suits that featured US flag patterns, and more generally swimmers from other countries started wearing suits with home flag motifs.

For the 1984 Olympics you had Steve “The Lunk” Lundquist, a really massive gold medal swimmer, Lundquist set the trend toward swimmers being really big and muscular. But the Speedo® has become far smaller than the one Spitz wore. This appears to be about a 2-inch side. In the mid- and late-1980s competitive men’s swimwear was getting skimpier and skimpier, and the TV cameras used to love panning over the swimmers’ lower bodies as they waited for the start. They quit doing this nowadays for some reason.

At about the same time, in the fall of 1984 Christopher Atkins took on a role as a camp counselor/swimmer and lover to Sue Ellen in the nighttime soap “Dallas”. This is the classic photo of Christopher from the series. A Sapphire blue Speedo® but with wider sides than the Lunk wore. Who says that in order to look sexy in a Speedo® you need to have really narrow sides!

Finally. Michael Phelps is remembered not so much for being seen in a Speedo® brief, but for wearing the really tight full body suit that was briefly legal in competitive swimming. Here is a poster of him wearing that suit.

[sebbie]

the other two poster photos

[Minimalist75]

In the 1970's or early 80's competitive male swimmers were limited to a minimum of 10 cm for the side seam of their swimsuits. Now they are limited to nothing above the waist or below the knee. How times change!
Based on how little he wore in some of his movies, it is surprising that Chris Atkins didn't wear the smallest swimsuit that the censors would allow!

[sebbie]

This historic Speedo ad came in one of my e-mailings from them. It is not dated but I am guessing it was early 1950s given the suits shown and no briefs. Once you got into the 1960s the non-brief suits became shorter, about an 8-inch leg, and featured a nylon net brief lining. Plaid patterns in a small print were all the rage. These suits show none of that and look to slow the swimmer down not speed the swimmer up.

Change pockets were a regular feature as you could carry a few coins of change and have enough foe something to eat. Times are different now. The cell phone would not fit in the change pocket and you wouldn't want to be swimming with your cell phone anyway. But the change was fine even in the water.

[Swimmboy]

I actually have a poster of that "Lunk" picture - purchased at the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale in the late 80s. He was a great breaststroker who swam for Southern Methodist University. Yes, the 80s saw a definite trend toward extremely brief suits. At the 88 Olympic Trials, and at the late 80s/early 90s NCAA championships, the infamous 'paper' suits ruled. Since swimmers want suits that are tight (so no water could slip into the suit to add drag), they often wore suits 2 sizes smaller than normal - so a guy with a 32" waist would squeeze into a size 28 Speedo or Finals (a big swimwear co. back then) paper suit. I often found size 26" in the locker rooms after a big meet also. The smaller the suit, the briefer it looked on a normal-sized male. And the 'paper' fabric was very thin - literally, it 'crinkled' like paper if you squeezed it in your hand. Sadly, in the mid-90s, the jammers started to replace the brief suits (competitive swimmers I've spoken to said the jammers were NOT used because swimmers wanted more 'coverage' - they like them because they squeeze and massage their thigh muscles so those muscles don't get tired as quickly. If you attend a regular college swim meet, most of the guys will still wear brief suits - they usually just use the jammers during their championship meets in February and March when they want to achieve their fastest times to hopefully qualify for NCAAs at the end of March.

[Minimalist75]

True, it is not for modesty but it still resulted in a maximum coverage rule and probably was a contributing factor to the decline in the wearing of swim briefs for recreational swimming.
My son swam on his high school team in 2007. Most of the boys on his and opposing teams wore jammers, very few wore briefs.

[Torchwatch]

I have a photo from a netted pool in the River Medway, Rochester, Kent dated 1895. It is a competition swimming event, the swimmers posed about to racing dive. Seven of them are wearing cotton swim briefs, one is possibly wearing a cotton Tarzan style loin cloth but it's hard to see. None of them feel compelled to cover up their thighs. In the audience there is a least one boy, this is competitive sport not something indecent to be kept hidden from the children.

There are 2 types of jammers; those made of "shark skin" water repelling fabrics, worn downsized and really tight and those made of normal swim Lycra but worn down to the knees.
The expensive sharks skin fabrics have less water drag than naked human skin and allow you to go faster, while swimming Lycra has greater water drag than naked human skin and will cause swimmer to go slower than if he were wearing Lycra swim briefs.
As is so often the case the sponsored top swimmers get the good kit while the poor kids joining the sport get stuff that looks right but doesn't do the job. I suspect that many boys who do swimming lessons in shorts are dropping out from joining their clubs racing squads because both they and their parents are confused and prejudiced against all skin tight male swimwear.