Jantzen The World's Favourite Swimming Suit

Maker Jantzen (American, founded 1910)

Datec 1930

Object number00000168

NameBox

MediumCardboard

DimensionsOverall: 290 x 355 x 60 mm

ClassificationsEphemera

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

DescriptionThis cardboard box was used by swimwear manufacturer Jantzen as retail packaging for their swimwear in the 1930s. The box features the company's distinctive streamlined red diving girl logo first used in the 1920s. The logo was used on swimwear, billboards, catalogues, posters and other advertising media. Throughout it's long use the logo has gradually changed to reflect changes in swimwear fashion, while remaining instantly recognisable as the Jantzen trade mark.HistoryThe Jantzen diving girl logo was developed by American Russell H Tandy, and first appeared in a Jantzen swimwear catalogue in 1920. The following year the company launched an advertising campaign using the diving girl logo on sticky labels. These became very popular as windscreen stickers. The logo was first used on swimwear in 1923 and featured in a national advertising campaign in the United States along with the slogan 'The Suit That Changed Bathing to Swimming'. This campaign saw the first use of the term 'swimming suit’. Modernised by illustrators Frank and Florenz Clark in 1928, by 1931 the diving girl logo was the seventh most recognised logo in the United States. The 1920s diving girl wore a red and white striped swimsuit with stocking and a red cap with a white pom-pom. By the 1930s she had become more streamlined and wore a briefer swimsuit and plain red cap. In 1948 she was redrawn wearing a strapless swimsuit and was revised again in 1980.SignificanceThe box is representative of Jantzen product packaging and design used during the 1930s.