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.