My first swim brief
I got my first swim brief sometime in 1970 or 71. In retrospect it was a fairly large but still a brief style. It was made of material that stretched quite a lot—not just nylon—and clung tightly to my skin. This was waist size 34 and the sides were about 4 inches. The brand name was Jantzen. Jantzen was famous for female swimwear and the brand logo was a photo of a female diver, even on the men’s suits. The pattern was a patriotic red, white and blue with stars.
Keep in mind that the Summer Olympics where Mark Spitz won seven swimming gold medals occurred in 1972 a little over a year later. The iconic photo of Spitz and his medals, clad only in a patriotic swim brief, became a famous wall poster. Spitz’ brief was not THAT different from my brief in cut, color or design. The sides look to me to be even wider, maybe closer to 5 inches. This was well before the period when the really skimpy narrow-sided briefs came into fashion among internationally-competitive swimmers. Spitz was only about two years younger than me, so I was of his generation.
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A year or so later I got my first real SpeedoŽ brief. That was still in a flag motif but much narrower sides and a skimpier cut all around. I liked that.
The funny part about this is that I still have the Jantzen brief. It is not in great shape but the stretch fabric still stretches and has not completely fallen apart. There is a use and care tag but that makes no mention as to what the fabric is made of. Looking on the Internet I found a vintage Jantzen brief made of Lycra and Polyamide with the Polyamide being nylon or close to it.
At some point, the SpeedoŽ completely disintegrated and completely fell apart, and I had to throw it away. I will admit that the Speedo ended up taking more male abuse than the Jantsen did. Given the cut I rather liked it better. And Lycra briefs I have found often don’t hold up well when laundering out cum stains, stains that are sometime reluctant to dissolve and disappear. Whatever Jantsen did the fabric was very stretchy and form-fitting and had a much longer life that the Speedo fabric.
Still, I had a lot of fun in both of these briefs, and the Jantsen that is with me now still serves as a reminder to me of how truly great times once were for me.