From Tarzan to Thunderball, Presley to Princess Diana - Jantzen clothed a century of icons, transforming Portland wool into Hollywood glamour and cinematic legend.
It began, as so many American stories do, in a workshop filled with the hum of industry and the scent of hot wool. In Portland, Oregon - a place more associated with logging camps than lounging decks - a small knitting concern produced sturdy sweaters for men of the river and the rail. Yet from this landlocked enterprise emerged a garment that would come to symbolise freedom, athleticism, and the art of leisure: the modern swimsuit.
Members of the Portland Rowing Club (c.1900)
Credit: Portland Rowing Club
The year was 1910, and the firm was called Portland Knitting Company, founded by Carl Christian Jantzen and brothers John A. and C. Roy Zehntbauer. The three gentlemen were members of the Portland Rowing Club, and in 1913, they were asked to create a rowing suit suitable for the Williamette River’s chilly mornings.
Carl C. Jantzen (2nd from right) modelling his revolutionary design
Credit: Portland Rowing Club
What Carl Jantzen devised was a revelation: a one-piece garment of pure wool, warm yet flexible, cut to move with the rhythm of the oar. It proved so successful that, by 1915, the company was producing a rib-stitch version under a new name, Jantzen, and a new philosophy. Function had found its form, and from those stitches a century of style would follow. By 1918, the company was reborn as Jantzen Knitting Mills, creators of “The Suit That Changed Bathing to Swimming.” In that transformation lay more than a change of name... it marked a cultural awakening.
Picnickers along Willamette River wearing Jantzen swimming suits, (c.1918)
Credit: Oregon Hist. Soc.
The age demanded an emblem, and Jantzen provided one. In 1920, designers Frank and Florenz Clark created a stylised female figure in mid-plunge: the Red Diving Girl. Clad in a daring scarlet suit, stocking cap, and matching hose, she embodied the new creed of the Jazz Age... health, vitality, and the joyous indulgence of motion.
The Red Diving Girl (1920)
Credit: Jantzen
By 1923 she adorned the swimsuits themselves, and the legend was born. Over time, the tassels and stockings disappeared, and by the late 1940s she had shed her straps altogether. The design was modernised again in the 1980s, yet the Diving Girl never lost her poise. Today she remains one of the longest-lived apparel icons in existence - as instantly recognisable as the polo player of Ralph Lauren or the spirit of Ecstasy atop a Rolls-Royce grille.
The evolution of the Jantzen Diving Girl
Credit: Jantzen
It was an image so potent that motorists affixed her decal to their cars, until, in a deliciously absurd episode of American prudery, the city of Boston banned her for being "too distracting". One can almost picture the scandalised officialdom, blind to the irony that this tiny silhouette of a woman in flight had captured the very essence of liberation.
The Diving Girl was available as an automobile mascot and decal
Photo: Jantzen
By the late 1920s and early ’30s, Jantzen’s red-suited emissary had conquered the globe. The company had established overseas factories and sales teams, notably in Vancouver, Sydney and London, and by 1932 the Jantzen name ranked among the seven most recognised trademarks in the world... a triumph of branding that preceded Madison Avenue by decades.
Jantzen ad by legendary illustrator McClelland Barclay (1926)
Credit: adsR
Jantzen did not simply capitalise on the popularity of swimming - it created it. In an age when most Americans could not swim, the company became a patron saint of the pool. During the late 1920s, Jantzen sponsored swimming lessons across the United States, emblazoned with the slogan “Learn to Swim — the Jantzen Way.” Its instructors toured public pools and YMCAs, teaching men, women, and children to move with the confidence and grace suggested by the Diving Girl herself.
"It really is easier to swim in a Jantzen" (c.1928)
Credit: Retro Ad Archives
It was a brilliant act of brand alchemy: every new swimmer became a potential customer, and every lesson an advertisement for modernity. In Jantzen’s world, swimming was not merely a pastime but a rite of passage - the physical expression of a liberated, athletic life.
"You leave the water as smartly clad as when you entered" (1929)
Credit: adsR
By the 1930s, Jantzen had achieved the impossible: transforming wool into allure. Its engineers replaced heavy stitches with finer yarns, incorporating elastic threads like Lastex that hugged rather than hindered the form. At the same time, Jantzen presided over a quiet revolution in men’s swimwear. Until then, modesty had demanded that men bathe in all-in-one suits, but Jantzen, ever the innovator, devised a brilliant compromise: a suit with a zip-around waist, known as the Topper. With a swift pull, the upper portion could be removed, leaving only streamlined trunks below.
Introducing the Jantzen Topper (1932)
Credit: Retro Ad Archives
It was a small act of engineering with vast cultural consequences. The Topper gave men the confidence to appear bare-chested on public beaches, transforming masculine swimwear from a woollen uniform into an emblem of athletic freedom. By the end of the decade, trunks had triumphed, and the modern male swimsuit had been born... thanks, once again, to Jantzen’s ingenuity.
'Molded-Fit' Swim Suits by Jantzen (1939)
Credit: Retro Ad Archives
Following his undefeated career as an Olympic swimmer, Johnny Weissmuller became one of the first great celebrity athletes of modern marketing, and Jantzen was quick to sign him as an endorser. By the early 1930s, his broad-shouldered frame graced Jantzen catalogues alongside Hollywood ingénues such as Ginger Rogers, presenting swimwear as both athletic kit and aspirational glamour.
Johnny Weissmuller swapped his Jantzen swim suit for Tarzan's loincloth (1932)
Creidt: Atlaspix
But Weissmuller’s fame created complications. At the same time he was under contract with rival BVD swimwear, leading to a clash of commercial loyalties. The situation reached its climax in 1932 when MGM cast him as Tarzan. For Weissmuller to don the jungle loincloth on screen, the studio had to negotiate with Jantzen to release him from his endorsement obligations - a testament to the brand’s grip on both the swimming pool and the silver screen.
Ginger Rogers: the embodiment of Hollywood's Golden Age (1936)
Credit: Getty Images
In December 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor transformed the American economy overnight. Civilian production contracted as military orders surged, and even a brand synonymous with sun and leisure was conscripted into service. Jantzen answered the call, redirecting its knitting mills from swimwear to wartime necessities. Alongside sweaters and swim trunks for servicemen, the company produced sleeping bags, gas mask carriers, and even parachutes. During the war years, the Jantzen Diving Girl stood quietly aside... other than the occasional moment.
"Make each moment something to remember" (1943)
Credit: adsR
Having spent the war years producing parachutes and sleeping bags, the company once again turned its looms toward beauty, and in doing so embraced a new generation of stars on the rise. Among them was a young Marilyn Monroe, photographed (below) in 1947 - just before her Hollywood breakthrough - modelling Jantzen swimwear. Her smile was luminous, her fame yet to ignite.
Marilyn Monroe models the 'Temptation' two-piece (1947)
Credit: Jantzen
It was a quietly radical image. Just as men’s swimwear had shed its upper half with the Topper of the 1930s, women’s designs now followed suit. Monroe’s midriff-baring ensemble marked a departure from the modest, corseted styles of the pre-war years - a moment of emancipation that foreshadowed the coming of the bikini. The photographs capture not only a woman on the brink of stardom, but a world loosening its stays, ready once more to bask in the sun.
Monroe wearing the Jantzen 'Double-Dare' (1947)
Credit: Jantzen
That same year, another unknown hopeful - seventeen-year-old James Garner - posed in Jantzen swimwear, the fresh-faced embodiment of post-war masculinity. These early portraits would become, in retrospect, an extraordinary roll-call of future legends - a testament to Jantzen’s uncanny ability to sense the shifting tides of beauty, youth, and fame.
James Garner modelling Jantzen 'Savage' swim trunks (1947)
Credit: Jantzen
In 1951, Elizabeth Taylor appeared opposite Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun, wearing a navy blue Jantzen 'Shirr-fire' swimsuit that shimmered like midnight silk against her porcelain skin. It was a moment of pure cinematic alchemy - the meeting of Hollywood’s most luminous ingénue and a brand that had already dressed America’s dreams. The image endures as one of the most seductive expressions of post-war elegance ever committed to film.
Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift (1951)
Credit: Everett Collection Inc.
By the dawn of the 1960s, Jantzen’s heritage of athletic glamour had found a new voice in Elvis Presley - the King of Rock ’n’ Roll turned beach-boy idol. In Blue Hawaii (1961), Presley surfed, sang, and smiled his way across the Pacific, dressed in Jantzen swim trunks that sculpted his figure as neatly as his stage suits. The photograph below shows Elvis balanced on his surfboard, easy and composed, the embodiment of post-war self-assurance.
Elvis Presley in 'Blue Hawaii' publicity shot (1961)
Credit: TCD/Prod.DB
The image below finds him on the beach, embracing his co-star against the line of the surf, a moment caught between rehearsal and reverie. Together, they capture the optimism of the age - youth in motion, unburdened and unguarded. Through Presley, Jantzen distilled that spirit, turning functional design into quiet theatre and proving that style, at its best, requires no performance at all.
Elvis and Joan Blackman on the set of 'Blue Hawaii' (1961)
Credit: Entertainment Pictures
Four years later, another figure would emerge to redefine masculine style for a new generation. Sean Connery, as James Bond in 'Thunderball' (1965), wore several pairs of Jantzen swim shorts throughout the film - cut close, understated, and built for movement.
Sean Connery and Martine Beswick in 'Thunderball' (1965)
Credit: Collection Cristophel
Where Presley embodied warmth and exuberance, Connery represented poise and precision. As 007 rose from the turquoise waters of Nassau, he gave physical form to Jantzen’s long-held ideal: the perfect balance of athletic grace and sartorial restraint.
Sean Connery, impersonating Elvis, with Claudine Auger in 'Thunderball' (1965)
Credit: Prisma by Dukas/RDB
From supplying oarsmen to hitmen, Jantzen not only invented the swimsuit, but over the course of half a century oversaw its evolution - from rib-stitch rowing suits to the sleek trunks and shorts of modern leisure. The company continued to design and manufacture men’s swimwear for a further three decades before shifting its focus exclusively to womenswear in 1995.
Sophia Loren keeping cool in her Jantzen swim suit (1952)
In that arena, its influence was nothing short of legendary. Jantzen helped to furnish the summer wardrobes of an extraordinary cast - from Sophia Loren to Scarlett Johansson, from Cindy Crawford to Claudia Schiffer, with royal approval from Grace Kelly and Princess Diana. Few brands can claim such a roll call, or such an enduring command of elegance beneath the sun.
Princess Diana on the island of Nevis wearing the Jantzen 'Sheer Delight' swimsuit (1993)
Credit: Getty Images
And yet, as another thirty years have passed - and as we mark the 60th anniversary of Thunderball - it seems fitting to ask whether the time has come for Jantzen menswear to return to the water. After all, the brand that once clothed Sean Connery’s 007 was never one to shy from adventure.
It’s an intriguing thought... and, as a certain spy might say, we should never say never again.