Inside the queer political history of Speedo swimwear

In the summer of 1961, on Sydney’s golden Bondi Beach, lifeguards had their work cut out. Not only were they keeping swimmers safe, but they were also operating as “beach inspectors”, strolling the sands with a tape measure, ready to rebuke women in scanty bikinis; no navels were to be exposed, and three inches of fabric covering the thigh was required. Dubbed “the Bikini Wars” in Australian newspapers, Waverley Council’s strict swimwear regulations saw 50 women ordered off the beach over the October long weekend. But just a few weeks later, this was no longer purely a battle against bikinis.

Alerted by other beach-goers, lifeguard and inspector Aubrey Laidlaw summoned the police to deal with a group of male swimmers, who were arrested for indecent exposure. They were wearing what the world knows today as Speedos – high-cut, streamlined and stretchy male swimming briefs. The men were ultimately released without charge, because no pubic hair was on display, but the incident was the talk of Sydney, and local swimwear brand Speedo suddenly had all the exposure it could handle.

Amber Butchart is a fashion historian, and curator of “Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style”, currently on at The Design Museum. “The Australian designer and artist Peter Travis was central to the development of the Speedo brief,” she says. “Travis was openly gay at a time when it was illegal, and designed innovative styles that celebrated the male form.”

Speedo has its origins in the MacRae Knitting Mills in Sydney, Australia, founded by Scottish immigrant Alexander MacRae in 1914.

The brand began producing swimwear, with that instantly recognisable boomerang logo, in the 1920s, but it wasn’t until the 1950s, when Travis was hired to revamp its menswear, that Speedo really started to make a splash.

Born in the Sydney beach suburb of Manly in 1929, Travis had a lengthy and varied career as a fashion designer, ceramics artist, kite-maker, teacher and visual arts adviser, being awarded the Member of the Order of Australia. He designed the colour palette for the inside of Australia’s parliament building in the 1980s, though in 1959, he was designing something even more political.

Hawaiian-style swimming trunks were becoming fashionable in Australia, thanks to Hollywood movies, and Travis was asked by Speedo to create something similar. But Travis had a bigger – or, technically, smaller – idea. “It was designed quite practically, not with fashion in mind,” he later recalled. “I realised you shouldn’t have anything around your waist that would twist when you swim. The only way you could stop that would be to end the cut on your hips. It’s designed as a purely functional object.” The first batch were released in three sizes: 17.5cm, 12.5cm and 7.5cm widths. Beach regulations were relaxed in 1962, and the 7.5cm width quickly overtook the previous summer’s more modest 17.5cm bestseller.

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For Sydney’s gay community, Speedo swim briefs immediately became a visual marker of body confidence, community, and celebration. New South Wales didn’t decriminalise homosexuality until 1984, but there were well-known “beats” where gay men could discreetly meet, such as Manly’s North Head beach.

Dr Shaun Cole is associate professor of fashion at the University of Southampton, and author of Gay Men’s Style: Fashion, Dress and Sexuality In The 21st Century. “As a fashion professor, we often ask how significant a designer’s sexuality is to their story,” he says. “There’s no question that Peter Travis brought an understanding of a particular aesthetic that had developed through his experiences, as a gay man living in Sydney’s beach suburbs, to design.”

Cole adds that, in places with big gay populations, such as Sydney, San Francisco, New York and London, “gay men were quick to popularise Speedo swim briefs because of the way they enhance the male body, revealing and concealing at the same time”. He points out that swim briefs were being worn in other countries across Europe at this point, and English gay men recount finding such swimwear in the side-street boutiques of Cannes.

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In England and Wales, “homosexual activity” in private was only decriminalised in 1967. “But gay men’s swimwear impacted wider design at this time through the work of Bill Green, known as Vince, a photographer for ‘physique magazines’,” says Butchart. “He developed a posing pouch that doubled as swimwear, and was encouraged to sell the garment through mail-order.” Sales were so successful that he opened a shop on Carnaby Street, regarded as the first men’s boutique in London.

But Speedo was the first major brand – and one affiliated with professional sports teams – to popularise the swim brief style. Travis was aware that they were a hit with gay men, but he always insisted that comfort and functionality underpinned the design, and that any perceived sexuality was “just a bonus”. The sexual power of Speedo swimming briefs is a resounding message that the swimmer is comfortable in their skin and ready to prioritise sensation, sporting prowess and pleasure over prudish societal norms.

“Gay men were already wearing this kind of very body-conscious style of swimwear before gay liberation started, but with the Stonewall Riots of 1969, and the UK’s partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967, things shifted and visibly gay men felt like less of a target,” says Cole. “And as gay visibility became more important, swim briefs became even more popular. In the 1970s, Speedos were very much the beach uniform in gay resorts such as Fire Island – where Calvin Klein brought a collection of sample Y-front briefs to road-test on his friends.”

Cole explains that during the post-Stonewall urban gay scene of the 1970s, a particular hyper-masculine look – inspired by archetypes such as firemen, cowboys, police officers and bikers, and brilliantly rendered by disco act Village People and their gay anthem “YMCA” – became so popular that it attracted the nickname “clone”. The term was initially pejorative, but later embraced as possibly the first example of gay men presenting themselves in a queer-signalling uniform, a bold rebuttal of any stereotypes around effeminacy. And Speedo swim briefs were part of this uniform.

But fashions fluctuate, and queer history – like the history of any marginalised group – is anything but straightforward. “I think the 1980s Aids epidemic changed everything in fashion,” says Cole. “Body-conscious swimwear started to be replaced by baggier boardshorts, perhaps because the body was associated with illness, perhaps because swim briefs were associated with gay men, who were in turn associated with Aids.” Nineties fashion in general was baggier and grungier, a shift away from the bright and bold body-con of the 1980s.

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However, the Speedo swimming brief has always retained its global strongholds – in Australia, as well as in Brazil, Italy, Greece and perhaps most significantly, in France, where tight swimming briefs are mandatory in municipal swimming pools, owing to hygiene concerns about looser trunks.

And even in more prudish swimwear cultures – Britain and North America deserve a special mention – men’s swimsuits gradually became smaller and tighter. In 2006’s Casino Royale, Daniel Craig’s James Bond exited the ocean in a pair of tight La Perla swimming briefs, in a signal to both gay and straight men that boardshorts were officially over. Although, as Butchart points out, in 2009 the theme park Alton Towers banned this style, “claiming the skimpy coverage was not family friendly”. Similar bans elsewhere have been criticised for targeting the LGBTQ+ community.

But by now, most people see Speedo swim briefs for what they are: functional sportswear that signals liberation. The British Olympian diver, Tom Daley – who came out as gay via in a YouTube video in 2013, at the age of 19 – has worn swim briefs from Speedo, Arena and Budgy Smuggler to name a few, and he’s even brought out his own collaboration with Adidas, which feature a knitting pattern in a nod to his other passion, and swimwear’s knitted origins.

Speedo swim briefs are back on the bodies of sportspeople, and on the gay-friendly beaches of Bondi, Sitges, Fire Island, Mykonos and Fort Lauderdale. They are also hugging the skin of heterosexual men who are done with bagginess and prudery – and are looking for a more far-reaching tan. They’re on magazine covers and billboards, too. In April, a post-White Lotus Walton Goggins could be seen manspreading on the cover of Cultured magazine in a pair of fluoro-yellow Speedos, while the show’s other heartthrob, Theo James, is selling Dolce and Gabbana perfume in tiny white swimmers.

Although Speedo will always be the brand most associated with the style, Nike, Adidas and Reebok are all getting in on the action too, with new releases out this summer. And one homegrown Australian brand – Budgy Smuggler – has reclaimed the pejorative term, leaning into the swim brief’s history of annoying prudes, homophobes and general detractors.

“Perhaps the ultimate mark of a design classic is when the brand name becomes a common noun, such as ‘hoover’ applying to any vacuum cleaner in America,” points out Cole. “Everyone knows exactly what a pair of Speedos looks like.” Speedo swim briefs are bold, they’re barrier-breaking, and they’re well and truly back on our beaches.