This is a story about the history of a swimwear logo. What’s Pilates got to do with it, you ask? For one, there is an uncanny resemblance to our exercise of the month, the Breaststroke, but there’s more. You’ll find out soon!
The logo belongs to the company Jantzen. Founded in 1910 in Portland, Oregon and under the name “Portland Knitting Company”, the company specialized in woolen sweaters, gloves, hosiery, and other knitwear. When a member of the local rowing club approached the company to make him a pair of trunks that would keep him warm during his paddling practice on a cold day and didn’t require the uncomfortable drawstring to stay put, the Portland Knitting Company obliged. They created a rib-stitch, stretchy one-piece garment that fit the bill and was quickly adopted by other members of the rowing club. Before long, there were requests for bathing suits.
Now, at the time, bathing suits were quite different from what we see males wearing today; the chest had to be fully covered, and a modesty piece of fabric—essentially, a skirt—had to cover the groin area. Making such a piece from wool would add up to a whopping eight pounds when wet… which isn’t exactly ideal for a swim.
The company rose to the occasion and came up with a lightweight version, utilizing patented elastic stitch technology to make a snug bathing suit that wouldn’t drag you to the bottom of the lake. The suit became Jantzen’s signature and breakout piece and changed the course of the company from knitwear to swimwear.
The Red Diving Girl adorned the Jantzen catalog in 1920 and quickly became a highly successful marketing tool for the company. Dressed in a bathing suit and a woolen cap and stockings (it would take a while longer until wool was no longer used in swimwear), diving girl could be seen everywhere from catalogs to newspaper adverts and highway billboards. When Jantzen distributed Red Diving Girl decals to retailers and fans, they ended up decorating around 5 million cars across the United States. Even though the decals were later banned in parts of the country due to public safety, the publicity stunt has worked: Jantzen became THE swimwear company (its slogan: “the suit that changed bathing to swimming”), and Red Diving Girl was one of the best known pictorial trademarks in the country.
She has changed her outfit over the years—losing her cap and stockings when the company’s loyalty to wool faded, becoming shorter at the thigh over the years, and changing from strapped to haltered to strapless to go with the times—but continues to be part of the company logo and its iconic history.
The Jantzen swimsuit was not just activewear, it was also a status symbol (not too dissimilar from how we all felt about Lululemon when they first entered the activewear scene). Among the brand’s fans were Ginger Rogers, Johnny Weissmuller, Elvis, Princess Diana, and… Joseph Pilates!
If you’ve seen more than one picture of Joseph Pilates, you know that his preferred daytime outfit is a skimpy swim trunk. And, if you zoom in on the shorts that Joseph Pilates liked to wear day in and day out, you’ll detect Red Diving Girl swan-diving atop his left thigh!
While we wouldn’t go as far as calling Joseph Pilates a fashion icon, his choice in brand makes perfect sense: when you’re looking for the single-most-important garment for your everyday life that leaves your body mostly uncovered (for better oxygen and Vitamin D intake, of course!) without restricting your mobility… why wouldn’t you go with the best?