Dive into Splash!

03 December 2025

London's Design Museum presents Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style, a vibrant exhibition celebrating 100 years of swimwear and swimming culture.

Curated by fashion historians Amber Butchart and Tiya Dahyabhai, it offers the opportunity to dive into the evolution of swimming style and its cultural impact over the past century.

Featuring over 200 objects, Splash! takes visitors on an exploration through the world of swimming to discover its multiple facets: from the evolution of swimwear and the design of pools themselves, to the politics of access to swimming and symbolic events related to water and swimming.

Divided into three sections — the pool, the lido, and nature — each part of the exhibition is brought to life through immersive design that echoes real swimming spaces, including iconic locations like the London Aquatics Center and the art-deco Jubilee Pool in Penzance.

The Pool
The exhibition's journey begins in the 1920s, a turning point when swimwear shifted from modest Victorian bathing garments to designs made for swimming and sporting performance.

Advances in textile technology are examined, and visitors can admire innovations such as a 1930s woolen Jantzen Swimsuit with a Y-shaped back that was designed for speed improvements, and a 1960s swimsuit which was made of Bri-Nylon and designed with champion swimmer Judy Grinham in mind.

Showcasing a dynamic collection of items centered around Olympic swimming, it includes a swimming cap worn by Syrian Olympian Yusra Mardini, whose amazing life and feat was turned into a film, as well as a hand-knitted jumper by Tom Daley, the diver known for knitting poolside to relieve stress and
raise money for causes.

On show in this section is also the iconic poster by David Hockney, commissioned to him for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, clearly expressing his distinctive style and love for pool patterns.

Another standout piece is the infamous LZR Racer swimsuit (on loan from the Bikini Art Museum in Germany), developed by Speedo in collaboration with NASA. Worn by athletes who claimed 94% of swimming golds at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the suit was later banned for what officials called “technical doping.”

The architecture of swimming is also highlighted with a model of the Aquatics Center designed by award winning architect Zaha Hadid; a landmark of the 2012 London Games, with its undulating roof, the structure was designed to mirror the riverside landscapes of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and replicate the idea of moving water.

The Lido
The lido represents the most comprehensive part of the show. Its centerpiece is an impressive collection of swimwear through the last century, from the midriff-exposing bikini designed in 1946 by French designer Louis Réard, (considered scandalous then), also on loan from BAM, and its predecessor, the Atom.

A fun collection of Speedo briefs, from the '80s to the 2010s, offers a reminder of how, first reshaped by Peter Travis in the 1960s, these briefs radically celebrated the male form and became known for using flashy bold colors. This section additionally offers an interesting insight into how our attitudes towards morality and nudity have changed over the past century.

The 'shocking' 1964 monokini, a one-piece suit with two thin straps across the chest, allowing the breasts to be proudly displayed, was a precursor of the “free the nipple” campaign. From a more social and cultural point of view, we get an insight into the discriminations endured by certain sections of society in history: fromthe exclusion of Jews from swimming areas by the Nazis, to the segregation of Black Americans.

The Young Physique, men's swimwear catalogs by Vince Green published in the 1960s, give us a glimpse into fashion material which also represented a form of softcore erotica for gay men when homosexuality was still illegal. From a design perspective, visitors can discover how the celebrated 1935 art deco sea water lido in Penzance was regenerated by a local community, its transformation including the UK's first geothermal powered seawater pool, heated all year round .

This area also houses a brilliantly illustrated section documenting the rise of the resort holiday, with vintage postcards, as well as what is probably the most famous swim item of the modern era: Pamela Anderson's iconic red Baywatch swimsuit (also from BAM).

Swimming in Nature
In the final section of Splash! visitors are treated to stunning nature photography, including sweeping shots of Sydney's natural ocean pools, alongside charming black-and-white images of the Kenwood Ladies' Pond from the 1920s.

Examining the role of nature and folklore in swimming's story, from merfolk, sea people, water spirits and nymphs populating centuries-old tales around the globe, the past 100 years have seen these stories told through mass-media for the first time. V

isitors can discover a range of examples, from stills of the British actor Glynis Johns as an enchanting mermaid in the 1948 film Miranda, to Halle Bailey on the cover of The Face magazine to promote her role as Ariel in the 2023 live-action remake of The Little Mermaid.

The exhibition closes with powerful personal stories from swimmers, including BBC presenter Summaya Mughal, who documented her journey of learning to swim as an adult in her podcast Brown Gal Can't Swim, and the legendary Roger Deakin, whose swimming odyssey across Britain helped redefine people's connection with the natural world.

A film about the haenyeo women on the South-Korean island of Jeju explores how for centuries they have been diving for seafood and seaweed at depths up to 20 meters, holding their breath for up to three minutes.

Seen through the eyes of a diver who decided to follow her mother into this arduous and dangerous work, the narrator reveals, “if you dive you don't feel depressed… There's no time to overthink everything.”

Tracing swimming's story over the last one hundred years, examining its changing role in modern life — from how it shapes and questions our notions of body autonomy and agency, to its deepening connection with environmental issues – Splash! reflects humankind's enduring love of water and its vital importance to our society.