Baywatch, Banned Swimsuits & Speedos: Inside Splash! At The Design Museum

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What to expect at this absorbing exhibition

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Donning your skin-tight nylon and immersing yourself in the water of your local pool feels like a given – but swimming hasn’t always been so commonplace. While swimming, even recreational swimming, is a tale as old as time, competitive and leisure swimming is a different story. The former is thought to have emerged in 1830s England, when the National Swimming Society started hosting regular competitions in artificial swimming pools across London. The latter, meanwhile, can be traced back to Victorian bathing culture and early beach holidays. And all of the above (and more) is subject of the Design Museum’s newly announced exhibition: Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style. Here’s what to expect – plus when you will be able to see it.

Subversive Sirens (© Ackerman + Gruber)

What To Expect At Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style

Examining Brits’ love affair with water over the past 100 years, Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style will trace all facets of swim culture, from the lido boom of the 20th century to Mermaidcore of the 2020s. With an enduring influence on fashion, technology and the environment as well as culture, visitors can expect to see eye-catching designs from the worlds of sport, film, leisure and more.

Beginning in the 1920s when the beach holiday began to boom and swimwear started being marketed for swimming rather than just bathing, Splash! will be arranged into three sections reflecting where we swim: the pool, the lido and nature. Taking us right up to the present day, Splash! will also explore swimming’s role in modern life, including how it influences ideas of body autonomy and agency, as well as environmental issues (think wild and cold water swimming). With a natural focus on design (from sports to fashion to architecture), Splash! will dive into the role design has played in shaping our relationship with the water – both in it and beside it.

‘The story of swimming is more than just a story of sport, as our new exhibition will make abundantly clear,’ says Tim Marlow, Director and CEO of the Design Museum. ‘By examining the culture of swimming through the lens of design, we will explore a range of evolving ideas about the way we have lived from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present, from materials and making to leisure, travel, performance, wellbeing and the environment. It’s another innovative exhibition that will show visitors to the Design Museum the profound impact of design in almost every aspect of our lives.’

A designer and a model in a swimming costume

Photo #7 Willie & Toukie Smith designer & model. NYC 1978. (© Anthony Barboza)

What Is On Display?

Curated by dress and design historian and broadcaster Amber Buchart in collaboration with the Design Museum’s in-house curator Tiya Dahyabhai, more than 200 objects (from around 50 lenders across Europe) will chronicle swimming’s social, cultural, technological and environmental evolution.

Splash!’s headline artefact is the iconic red bathing suit from Baywatch, worn by Pamela Anderson in character as CJ Parker. Considered the most famous piece of swimwear in the world, at its peak in the 1990s, the beachside US TV series is thought to have attracted 1.1 billion weekly viewers. The swimsuit will come to London on loan from Germany’s BikiniARTmuseum, the first international museum of swimwear and bathing culture, acquired from Anderson’s co-star David Hasselhoff and All-American Television in 2023.

More notable items on display include:

The first Olympic solo swimming gold medal won by a British woman – Lucy Morton at the 1924 Paris games
The first two-piece swimwear to be considered a bikini, first presented by designer Louis Réard at the Molitor pool in Paris in July 1946
10 pairs of Speedo briefs – better known today simply as Speedos – ranging from the 1980s to today’s design
The ‘technical doping’ LZR Racer swimsuit, developed by Speedo, NASA and the Australian Institute of Sport and banned in 2010. (Introduced in 2008, 79 of 108 world records were broken by swimmers wearing the suit in its first year – and 94 percent gold medal winners at the 2008 Beijing Olympics wore the suit due to its advantages in speed, buoyancy and drag reduction.)
A detailed architectural model of the Zaha Hadid’s London 2012 Aquatics Centre
A men’s striped woollen swimsuit designed by Bukta and dating back to 1933
A 1930s woollen Jantzen Swimsuit with a Y-shaped back designed for speed improvements
A 1960s swimsuit designed with Olympic champion swimmer Judy Grinham (the second woman to win solo gold for Britain in the pool in the Olympics), made of Bri-Nylon
A film delving into Penzance’s celebrated Jubilee Pool, which opened in 1935 and is noted for its unique triangular shape and year-round geothermal heating
More architectural displays delving into saunas, beach huts and public baths
Artefacts chronicling the role of nature and folklore in swimming spanning merfolk, sea people, water spirits and nymphs in centuries-old tales right up to 2023’s The Little Mermaid
A segment focussed on contemporary swimwear, assessing who swimwear is designed by and for

‘It’s incredible to be showing Pamela Anderson’s iconic Baywatch swimsuit in the exhibition, especially at this pivotal point when she has reclaimed her own image, and has designed and modelled her own swimwear,’ Amber shares. ‘I live in Margate and I grew up in a seaside town, and as a fashion historian, understanding our relationship with water through design and clothing has always been at the heart of my work. So it’s a delight to bring this exhibition to the Design Museum. The history of swimwear and swimming is fascinating as it mirrors wider changes in society over the past century, whether that’s around issues of bodily autonomy and agency, or how we spend our leisure time.’