‘TAmber Butchart is the curator of an exhibition about swimming at London’s Design Museum. She says, “I am a terrible swimmer.” Growing up, school swimming lessons were “horrible, traumatic” – the cold water, the humiliation, the scrutiny from teenage boys. Margate, a resort built in 1930, has a huge tidal-pool pool that she loves to swim in. Butchart says, “This may sound pretentious but it’s the idea of becoming one horizon.” It’s like being immersed in the water and experiencing the vastness of our world. It’s transformational.”
Splash! Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style examines our love affair with swimming. From Britain’s lido explosion of the 1920s and 1930s to the Mermaidcore style that has been on TikTok for the past few years. The 200 exhibits include the first Olympic gold medal for solo swimming won by a British women, men’s Speedos dating back to the 1980s, and the iconic red bathing suit worn by Pamela Anderson from Baywatch. The exhibition, which tells the history of swimming through design and fashion is a great way to explore the politics surrounding the pool. Butchart wanted to avoid the kitschy stereotypes that are often associated with the theme of swimming.
“Of course, it’s about design, architecture, and fashion. But there are also so many social histories and wider global histories that I wanted to include, because the idea of outdoor swimming and the sea as a redemptive force is not for everyone. Many communities in Britain are not taught how to swim. There are people in Kent who cross the road. [the Channel] This is a tragedy of epic proportions. “The sea is not a haven for everyone.
Butchart’s idea for an exhibition came during the Pandemic when indoor swimming pools were closed. Daily swims in seawater became a life affirming ritual. Margate, one of the first British spas to promote sea swimming as a health remedy in the 1700s is the place where the story began. The oldest piece on display is an knitted municipal bathing suit that was rented by Margate Corporation to swimmers in the 1920s (the logo has been stamped neatly on the front). Butchart says that swimwear allows people to access public spaces. “You cannot swim in public if you are not wearing a bathing suit.” Then we’re immediately thrown into the question of who gets access to the space and who doesn’t.
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From left to right, the swimwear worn by Pamela Anderson during Baywatch is shown; Rebirth swimwear created for nonbinary and non-gender-conforming individuals; a 1920s Margate Corporation swimsuit; Olympic swimmer Alice Dearing sporting a Soul Cap swimming cap. Photographs: Zuma Press/Alamy; Colectivo Multipolar; Luke Hayes/Design Museum; Soul Cap
Butchart says that as a fashion scholar who began her career at a vintage clothing retailer, she is passionate about 1950s swimwear. However, she adds: “I knew how so many past stories on swimwear favored particular body types, and left out other types.” So I wanted to make it a more inclusive show.
The swimsuit Alice Dearing wore at the Tokyo Olympics is on display. Dearing, the first African-American woman to represent Team GB and cofounder of the Black Swimming Association. She will be a mother in 2022. Collaboration with Soul CapThe company creates swim caps that are suitable for people who have afro-hair, locs, and braids. The caps were banned International Swimming Federation (ISF) has banned the sport of swimming from the Olympics 2021 because it does not adhere to the “natural shape of the head”. The decision was reversed in the year following.
This exhibition explores the history of swimming and its social and cultural significance. Designers and architects will also be presenting solutions that improve accessibility to swimming pools, whether for the disabled or the elderly. UK’s first beach huts purpose-built for people with disabilities in BoscombeYou can choose from a wide range of swimwear for non-binary, trans and gender non-conforming people. Also, a short movie from Subversive SirensThe mission of the Minnesota-based team is “Black liberation, Equity in Swimming, Radical Body Acceptance and Queer Visibility”.
Not only does the exhibition look at what we wear in the water, but it also charts the rise of the seaside as a place for showing off the latest fashions – the pier and the promenade doubling up as an outdoor catwalk. Butchart says that one of the reasons she loves living by the sea is the fact that people are more willing to take risks when it comes to their clothing. The sartorial codes can be abused. A pair of 1930s “beach pants” is one of her favorite items. This trend was started by Coco Chanel and flourished at fashionable French resorts like Juan-les-Pins, Deauville and eventually made its way to the UK. Butchart states that this was the first occasion when women were permitted to wear trousers publicly.
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Photo: JA Hampton/Getty images. Women wearing matching beach pyjamas on the promenade in Thorpe Bay, Essex. Photograph: JA Hampton/Getty Images
The golden age of lido construction coincided with the rise of beachwear. In the UK, art deco wonders like the Jubilee Pool at Penzance and similar structures began to appear along the coast. The magnificent pool – the largest surviving saltwater lido in the country – reopened After a large-scale community campaign, the 2016 renovations were completed. Many public baths and lidos in our area have not had the same luck.
The exhibition’s timeline traces the rise of package holidays overseas, the decline of British seaside resorts and the environmental challenges facing open water swimming today. And while the solutions to some problems belong firmly in the 21st century – the ongoing search for alternatives to fossil fuel-derived synthetics for manufacturing swimwear, for example – for others, we must look to the past. Butchart thinks that the link between seaside resorts and health that made them popular in the 1800s, such as Scarborough, Brighton and Margate could be the key to their future. She points to an initiative in her adopted home town of Margate – a free community beach sauna in a recreated Victorian bathing machine – as a perfect example of a “full circle moment”.
The scope of this exhibition is as wide-ranging as those views on the horizons from Margate’s tidal pools. It includes everything from the golden age of lidos, to the sewage in the seas, to kiss-me-quick and queer visibility. Butchart wants visitors to find it stimulating. But most of all, she hopes it will inspire them: “If people leave the exhibition thinking ‘I just really want to go for a swim’, that would be lovely.”
Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style Design Museum, 28 March – 17 August
