From Caleçons to Fastskin

A Study Of How Male Swimwear Developed And Changed From Its Introduction To Modern Times

For most of human history, the idea of an item or items of clothing specifically for swimming was seen as unnecessary and the thought of developing such clothing items likely never even occurred to most people. Since ancient times, males simply removed their  clothing and swam naked in most cases. In some societies they might wear a clothing item that otherwise served as underwear, however this was the generally the exception, rather than the rule. Stories survive of Romans swimming in their armor, despite the difficulty of this feat, since they might need it when they emerged from the water, [1] and in the time of the Roman Empire fishermen in Galilee might wear their tunic when swimming to the boat from the shore, despite working naked on their boat, since they would want to be clothed when they reached the shore, as we see with the Apostle Peter as related in the Gospel of John in the Bible. [2]

Early Greek men in the Archaic period sometimes wore an apron when swimming, and as early as 797 A.D., in the Far East, Japanese men and boys wore fundoshi, their loincloth underwear, when swimming, although they too sometimes simply went naked. [3] One story, completely unsubstantiated, was that the reason for wearing the fundoshi was that if a shark moved toward the swimmer when he was swimming in the ocean he could remove the garment, distracting the  shark with it while he made his escape. [4]

Roman men usually bathed and swam naked, although they generally had more taboos against nudity in other aspects of public life than did the Greeks, and in the early Christian church new converts were baptized while naked, although female baptisms were performed by deaconesses and only after the men had left. [5] Some early Christian splinter groups, such as the Gnostics and the Manicheans, taught that matter is evil, and despite being denounced as heretics by mainstream Christianity they influenced it greatly in the third and fourth century, leading to the idea of the body being shameful becoming mainstream in the Church during that time. Regular bathing was therefore frowned upon, as was swimming, since this would expose the 'evil' physical form of the human body. [6] These restrictions waxed and waned during the medieval period, depending on the location and how stringent and powerful the local authorities were who belonged to the Church.

As the Western world moved into the Renaissance period, swimming came to be seen in a positive light once more, as the Renaissance humanists came to see man as “the measure of all things,” and believed that a better appreciation of the human form would lead to a better understanding and relationship with God. While both the male and female forms were studied by artists and researchers during the period, however, public bathing and swimming was done primarily by men, and when women were allowed to participate they were required to wear a bathing gown or shift. Even then, they were not allowed to take to the waters when men were present, although the opposite did not hold true and men would regularly swim in public places where clothed women were allowed to be present so long as they were not also participating. Efforts were made in some locations for men to wear something when swimming, including a 1737 requirement in the public baths of Bath, England, for men to wear a pair of drawers and a waistcoat when taking the waters, but these rules were applied only in a few places, and at public lakes, rivers, and seashores it was still the rule rather than the exception for men to swim without any clothing whatsoever. Bathing machines, which were large contrivances driven into the water at public beaches, were used as a place to undress and enter the water without being seen by all, but the swimmers were still nude. In some of the more public places localities began to enact restrictions on nude swimming, including in Brighton, but these restrictions only prohibited swimming nude from the beach without using a bathing machine to enter the water. Ralph Thomas, writing in 1904 stated that:

It is somewhat surprising to find Frost in 1816 putting his figures in costume a little more than A.S.A., as he has short sleeves, for except with Frost who recommends them, not even drawers were thought of until some fifty years after, and then only in large towns. Even now in country towns the healthy and manly practice of bathing without 'vain ornament' of any kind often prevails. Only those dogs who have gone free, know the annoyance of a muzzle. [7]

It was not until the Victorian period that the situation started to change at a national level in Britain. In 1837, Queen Victoria came to the throne, and she made statements indicating that she did not feel it proper for gentlemen of the aristocracy to be seen naked by ladies of the aristocracy when bathing or swimming at the seashore. Therefore, new books on etiquette in the early 1840s indicated that it was proper for a gentleman who was swimming to politely cover himself with one of his hands when a lady passed by where he was swimming. In this period, mixed bathing, or men and women swimming together, was not an accepted custom in Britain or in most of the United States, and it is likely for this reason that swimwear for men originated in France, which began to allow mixed bathing early in the nineteenth century, and therefore mandated swimming drawers at an earlier period than in English-speaking world. At first, in about 1800, only those who could afford drawers were required to wear them and most men still swam naked, but by 1844 most were wearing drawers, and it was about this time that there was a push to make this a requirement in England as well, as Thomas attests. In the eastern part of the United States, mixed bathing was allowed as early as the 1840s on the coastal seashore, but where it was allowed, Thomas states that men were required to wear trousers and a shirt, although he admitted he was going off of hearsay, and other documentation indicates that this was not universally true. He stated that it was in 1860 that the London baths began requiring men to wear drawers, with other cities following suit within a few years. [8]

Most places where these requirements were put in place were among the more industrialized parts of Britain and the United States. In small towns, in the countryside, and along the American frontier, swimming was still done in the raw by males well into the twentieth century. The swimwear that was most commonly worn in the latter half of the nineteenth century was a garment the French called caleçons, which were often red and white striped drawers, usually made of wool. These drawers had a fit similar to that of modern boxer briefs or square-leg competition shorts. Unlike modern swimwear, however, they would cling to the body when wet, were generally uncomfortable, and were prone to being lost when in the water.

Among the upper classes, there was development of the longer style swimwear many of us picture when we think about swimming in that time period. These started off being similar to the union suits worn as underwear during the period, and in fact some men simply wore their union suits for swimming. By the 1890s, designers had developed swimwear that covered from the neck to the knee, with sleeves to the elbows, but by the 1910s the sleeves had mostly gone away, and by the 1920s the average length of the legs on these swimsuits was only to the upper thigh. These swimsuits were not cheap. A catalog from 1913 shows a knee-length sleeveless men's swimsuit being sold for $2.50. [9] That might not sound like a lot to someone living in 2017, but adjusted for inflation this would be like paying $62.19 today. [10] While this might not completely break the bank for the modern person, it is understandable that most would prefer to simply wear a pair of drawers, or even swim naked where allowed, instead of paying that much. Another thing to keep in mind is that while the purchasing power of $2.50 in 1913 might equate to a little over $62 today, this does not account for the much lower incomes and lower purchasing ability overall of most people in the early 1900s. In 1913, an average worker might bring home $800 in a year, [11] while in small towns and rural communities this would have been a lot less. In 1909, a farm worker usually made anywhere from $175 to $412 yearly, depending on where in the country they lived. This would amount to between 48 cents and one dollar and 12 cents daily, which means that a farm worker would have to pay at least two days wages, and perhaps more than five days wages, for swimwear. [12] This was a time period in which close to half the population of the United States was still involved in agriculture, although this was steadily shrinking by that time.

We can therefore see that the common misconception many people have today, that prior to the 1930s all men wore various swimwear that usually covered them from the neck to the knees at a minimum, covering less as time went by until men gained the right to go shirtless in the late 1930s, simply does not fit into what we know of the economics of the time. The reality is that, while these types of swimwear did follow the trend just described, very few men could afford them, and these more extensive swimsuits were only worn by the very rich, generally less than one percent of the male population. Most either continued to swim nude or wore some form of minimal drawers. Variants of the  caleçons were predominantly worn, with some swimmers wearing drawers that were more like swimming briefs as early as the 1910's. In fact, while many competitive swimmers owned full bathing suits that covered parts of the torso as well as the upper legs, a great many wore these only for promotional photos and would set them aside and compete nude whenever this was allowed. Whether or not ditching the suit was allowed had a lot to do with who the judges were in the particular competition. Judges tended to be more open to allowing male swimmers to ditch their suits than they were to allowing female swimmers to compete in suits that were considered to be too revealing. In 1912, at the Stockholm Olympics, the American women's swim team was not allowed to compete because their swimsuits were believed to show too much skin. Their one-piece swimwear was equivalent to boxers style shorts and sleeveless shirts. Male swimmers in the same Olympics were allowed to compete in swim briefs that covered about as much as the modern Speedo, but being made of wool would cling to the body when wet and left nothing to the imagination. Some male swimmers during this time may have even been allowed to compete nude.

It is clear from surviving photographs that even in the early years, male competitors in the swimming events at the Olympics would usually wear swimsuits for the Olympic events, most of which consisted of shorter swims and diving, although based on some surviving comments from the period it is possible that in some cases they may have been allowed to shed their wool swimsuits when competing even at the Olympic games. One surviving photo of a French swimmer from the 1924 Paris Olympics shows the swimmer preparing to get in the water to compete, and he is nude in the photograph. Overall, however, the Olympics seemed to be more stringent on swimmers wearing swimsuits... at least when cameras were present. It was, however, quite common for male swimmers to ditch the suits in other swimming competitions of the era, including the Wrigley Ocean Marathon in the late 1920s, where many of the swimmers wore only a coating of axle grease to insulate against the cold water of the ocean. This can be seen in the photograph heading this blog post, where two of the male competitors pictured are clearly naked, and while one is holding a small hand towel in front of himself, and another is covering himself with his hands, they are clearly only doing this because they are being photographed. Since the rules allowed males to compete in the nude, but specified that this applied only to the males, some female swimmers complained that they too should be allowed to compete in the nude. When the judges agreed, this caused a public outcry in southern California, and many people began to question the double standard. [13]

Not all male swimmers competed nude, even when it was allowed. Some, like swimmer Bill Burgess, who swam the English channel in 1911, wore simple briefs, while some did wear the full bathing suits, heavy and cumbersome as they were. Burgess was the first to swim with goggles, although the motorcycle goggles he wore were not watertight and served only to keep salt spray out of his eyes. [14] As early as the 1912 Stockholm Olympics a form of swim briefs had been worn in competitions (the same year the American swim team was not allowed to compete due to bathing suits that showed far less skin and were basically equivalent to shorts and a tank top today), [15] but in the 1932 Olympics judges were strict in requiring all male swimmers to wear full bathing suits that covered the chest during all competitions. It was at about this time that many male swimmers began to ditch the cumbersome swimwear that had been de rigeur, and to wear more streamlined swimwear that was being developed at about that time. In 1927 the Speedo company released their racerback swimsuit for males, which was made of a very sheer material and covered significantly less of the body than previous ones had. While many recreational swimmers had continued to wear drawers somewhat like the calecons throughout this period, it was in the period between 1933-1935 that chest-baring swimwear of this type, but using more modern materials, began to be made, incorporating elastics to make the material stretch and be more form-fitting. Speedo swimwear of this type was used by the Australian swim team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where there was a reversal from the stricter rules of the 1932 Olympics. Throughout the late 1930s and the 1940s male swimwear moved toward showing more and more skin, and by 1948 swim briefs were again being worn at the Olympics. [16]

As stated previously, some historiography would have the reader believe that men throughout the United States had to fight for the right to remove their shirts in public, and that this didn't happen until 1937. The reality is that a male being shirtless while swimming was only ever a taboo in a few places on the East and West coasts that were dominated by Yankee culture; that is, the culture that had originated in New England and spread to a few other parts of the country. Throughout most of the United States, men and boys had continued to swim either nude or wearing a simple pair of drawers throughout this period. By the late 1930s, however, swimming nude, at least in public places where females were around, had largely fallen out of favor in American society, with the exception of certain parts of the Midwest and a few rural locations in the Appalachians. In rural areas of the south, including East Texas, many could not afford to buy swimwear, but would wear an old pair of trousers cut off at the knees when swimming in mixed company and would swim nude when not in mixed company. For those who could afford them, most males wore some form of swim briefs from the late 1930s, into well into the 1960s, as can be seen in many photos of the period, including a 1930s image of Love's Lookout Pool near Jacksonville, Texas. [17] In addition to swim briefs, similar form-fitting swimwear with squared off legs, kind of like a shorter version of the caleçons, was also popular.

By the 1950s, some men began to opt for swimwear that was a bit less form-fitting. Boxer-style swimwear, while not common, had been worn as early as 1912, as seen in a photo of Australasian swimmers in Stockholm that year. It was not until the 1950s, however, that these gained in popularity, although it would not be until the 1970s that they became more popular than swim briefs in some parts of the country, and would not become mainstream for most male swimmers throughout the country until the 1980s. By the 1990s, however, another type of swimwear was becoming more prominent in the United States, and this was board shorts. Board shorts came out of the surfing sub-culture in the United States, which began in Hawaii and then migrated to Southern California. Surfing had originated with native Hawaiians, who had worn no clothing for this activity, preferring to go naked, as attested by Mark Twain in his book Roughing It. After Hawaii became a United States territory, however, the white settlers moving into the islands pressured the islanders to wear clothing for activities such as this, and by the 1950s surfers were wearing the same kind of swimwear worn by mainstream society, which by this point meant wearing swim briefs or form-fitting square-leg swimwear.

By the 1940s and 1950s, surfers started making surfboards out of laminated fiberglass, where before they had traditionally had been made out of koa wood or more recently balsa wood. Making the boards out this newer material made them lighter and easier to handle, [18] but it also made them slick, so surfers began to apply wax to the boards to provide traction so they wouldn't slip when riding the waves. The problem many surfers encountered with using the wax, however, was that it would cause chafing on their inner thighs when they rode their surfboards out to catch a wave. In the late 1940s, surfers at the Manhattan Beach Surf Club started buying white sailor pants at the Salvation Army and trimming them so they ended just below the knee. [19] These shorts, unfitted and with a baggier inseam, worked better for many surfers and, while many still used the shorter swimwear, over time these board shorts caught on and spread within the surfer community. As surfing became more visible and mainstream in American culture, it became popular for many American men to wear board shorts for recreational swimming. Shorter boxer-style trunks, swim briefs, square-legs, and jammers became much less popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, although in the past 15 years there has been a resurgence in some of these style, and in many places all of these styles can be seen alongside the board shorts, which are still popular.

In the early 2000s, Speedo and TYR developed form-fitting suits that cover the swimmer from the neck to the ankles and allowed many swimming records to be broken during the first decade of the century. In the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, 33 out of the 36 medals were won by swimmers wearing the new Speedo suits. [20] Within the past decade, however, use of these expensive swimsuits has been largely banned, since it was deemed by many judges to provide too much of an unfair advantage to those who can afford them, especially since the suits cost hundreds of dollars apiece and don't last very long. Newer Olympic regulations for most swimming competitions are that male swimwear can maximally cover from the waist to the knee. [21]

Bibliography

Cyril of Jerusalem, Translated by Edwin Hamilton Gifford,  Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Volume 7. Buffalo, New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894.

Duke University Library Digital Collections Item ID A0199. B. Altman and Company Advertisements. Summer Apparel. https://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa_A0199/.

Goodgame, Clayton, “High-Tech Swimsuits. Winning Medals Too,” Time Magazine, http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1832434,00.html, August 13, 2008.

Historical Statistics of the United States. Chapter D, Earnings, Hours, and Working Conditions. Washington: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1975, Series D 705-714.

International Swimming Hall of Fame, “The History of Goggles,” https://ishof.org/assets/the-history-of-swimming-goggles.pdf.

Love's Lookout Pool near Jacksonville, Texas, in the 1930s. Photograph, https://i.pinimg.com/736x/df/a2/55/dfa2554cf6ee31968df7ba69a2df60fc—summer--s.jpg.

McCarthy, Erin, “A Brief History of the Surfboard,” Popular Mechanics, http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/sports/a7666/a-brief-history-of-the-surfboard-8347626/, June 12, 2012.

Money Choice. “100 Years of Change,” http://www.moneychoice.org/then-vs-now/.

New Zealand Olympic Museum. “Photo of Australasian Swimmers, Stockholm, 1912,” https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/37886/australasian-swimmers-stockholm-1912.

Old Bull Lee. “History of Board Shorts,” https://www.oldbullshorts.com/history-of-board-shorts.

Sherr, Lynn, Swim: Why we Love the Water. New York: Perseus Books Group, Public Affairs, 2012.

Smith, Sir William, A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, Volume II. Hartford: The J.B. Burr Publishing Co., 1880.

Snodgrass, Mary Ellen, World Clothing and Fashion: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Social Influence. New York: Routledge, 2015.

Speedo. “Our History,” https://speedo.com.au/page/history.

Tang, Dru, “Fundoshi,” HinoMaple: Dru's Misadventures (blog). September 13, 2013, http://blog.hinomaple.com/2013/09/13/fundoshi/.

Thomas, Ralph, Swimming. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company Limited, St. Dunstan's House, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, 1904.

US Inflation Calculator. http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/.

Wertheim, Jon, “Sea of Dreams: How William Wrigley, Jr. Brought the Wrigley Ocean Marathon to Life.” Sports Illustrated Magazine, June 23, 2017.

Wong, Kristina, “Full Body Swimsuit Now Banned for Professional Swimmers,” ABC News, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/full-body-swimsuit-now-banned-professional-swimmers/story?id=9437780, January 4, 2010.

 Lynn Sherr, Swim: Why we Love the Water (New York: Perseus Books Group, Public Affairs, 2012), 19-20.

 The Holy Bible, John 21: 7-8.

 Mary Ellen Snodgrass, World Clothing and Fashion: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Social Influence (New York: Routledge, 2015), 565.

 Dru Tang, “Fundoshi,” HinoMaple: Dru's Misadventures (blog), September 13, 2013, http://blog.hinomaple.com/2013/09/13/fundoshi/.

 [1] Lynn Sherr, Swim: Why we Love the Water (New York: Perseus Books Group, Public Affairs, 2012), 19-20.

[2] The Holy Bible, John 21: 7-8.

[3] Mary Ellen Snodgrass, World Clothing and Fashion: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Social Influence (New York: Routledge, 2015), 565.

[4] Dru Tang, “Fundoshi,” HinoMaple: Dru's Misadventures (blog), September 13, 2013, http://blog.hinomaple.com/2013/09/13/fundoshi/.

[5] Cyril of Jerusalem, Translated by Edwin Hamilton Gifford,  Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Volume 7 (Buffalo, New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894), recovered from http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310120.htm

[6] Sir William Smith, A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, Volume II (Hartford: The J.B. Burr Publishing Co., 1880), 939.

[7] Ralph Thomas, Swimming (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company Limited, St. Dunstan's House, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, 1904), 108.

[8] Ibid., 109-110.

[9] Duke University Library Digital Collections Item ID A0199. B. Altman and Company Advertisements. Summer Apparel. https://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa_A0199/, Retrieved December 2, 2017.

[10] US Inflation Calculator. http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/, Calculated on December 2, 2017.

[11] Money Choice. “100 Years of Change,” http://www.moneychoice.org/then-vs-now/, Retrieved December 2, 2017.

[12] Historical Statistics of the United States. “Chapter D, Earnings, Hours, and Working Conditions”. (Washington: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1975), Series D 705-714.

[13] Jon Wertheim. “Sea of Dreams: How William Wrigley, Jr. Brought the Wrigley Ocean Marathon to Life.” Sports Illustrated Magazine, June 23, 2017. Retrieved December 2, 2017.

[14] International Swimming Hall of Fame article. “The History of Goggles,” https://ishof.org/assets/the-history-of-swimming-goggles.pdf, retrieved December 2. 2017.

[15] New Zealand Olympic Museum. “Photo of Australasian Swimmers, Stockholm, 1912”  https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/37886/australasian-swimmers-stockholm-1912, Retrieved December 2, 2017.

[16] Speedo. “Our History,” https://speedo.com.au/page/history, Retrieved December 2, 2017.

[17] Love's Lookout Pool near Jacksonville, Texas, in the 1930s. Photograph, https://i.pinimg.com/736x/df/a2/55/dfa2554cf6ee31968df7ba69a2df60fc—summer--s.jpg, Retrieved December 2, 2017.

[18] Erin McCarthy, “A Brief History of the Surfboard,” Popular Mechanics, http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/sports/a7666/a-brief-history-of-the-surfboard-8347626/, June 12, 2012. Retrieved on December 2, 2017.

[19] Old Bull Lee Website. “History of Board Shorts,” https://www.oldbullshorts.com/history-of-board-shorts, Retrieved on December 2, 2017.

[20] Clayton Goodgame. “High-Tech Swimsuits. Winning Medals Too,” Time Magazine, http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1832434,00.html, August 13, 2008. Retrieved December 2, 2017.

[21] Kristina Wong. “Full Body Swimsuit Now Banned for Professional Swimmers,” ABC News, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/full-body-swimsuit-now-banned-professional-swimmers/story?id=9437780, January 4, 2010. Retrieved December 2, 2017.