Pamela Anderson’s Sensational Baywatch Swimsuit leads Exhibition on Swimming’s Century

Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style — opening at the Design Museum in  March 2025 and with tickets on sale from today — will examine our enduring love  of water over the past 100 years: from Britain’s lido boom during the early 20th century, to the viral Mermaidcore trend of the 2020s. 

Other remarkable objects now revealed to be going on show in the exhibition  include the banned ‘technical doping’ LZR Racer swimsuit, one of the earliest surviving examples of a bikini, and a detailed architectural model of the Zaha  Hadid-designed London 2012 Aquatics Centre. 

In total over 200 objects — from around 50 lenders across Europe —will feature in  Splash!, collectively exploring swimming’s evolution in its social, cultural,  technological and environmental contexts.  

Across three in-depth sections that reflect the three locations in which we swim — the pool, the lido and nature — the exhibition will dive into design’s role in shaping  our relationship with swimming, both in the water and beside it. Visitors will  discover the full spectrum of the design of swimming — from sports performance  and fashion, to architecture. 

The exhibition’s story will begin in the 1920s, when swimwear began to be marketed for swimming rather than the Victorian’s preference for bathing, and  when beach holidays exploded in popularity. It will explore right up to the present  day, and swimming’s role in modern life such as how it influences and subverts our  ideas of body autonomy and agency, as well as its link to environmental issues. 

Splash! will be guest-curated by Amber Butchart, a dress and design historian and  broadcaster known for her history segments on BBC One’s The Great British Sewing  Bee. From the Design Museum, the exhibition is curated by Tiya Dahyabhai. 

With US TV series Baywatch drawing an estimated 1.1 billion weekly viewers at its  peak in the 1990s, the red swimsuit worn by actor Pamela Anderson (as iconic  character CJ Parker) can claim to be the most famous piece of swimwear in the  world.  

Visitors to Splash! will be able to get up-close to a surviving edition of the suit worn  by Anderson during her tenure on the show from 1992-97. It will come on loan to  the Design Museum in London from the BikiniARTmuseum in Germany — the first  international museum of swimwear and bathing culture — who acquired the piece  from the collection of Anderson’s co-star David Hasselhoff and All-American  Television in 2023.  

Baywatch’s swim costumes were based on swimsuits worn by real lifeguards in  Southern California. Each of the actors were given costumes specially adapted for  their specific proportions. The popularity of Baywatch put the one-piece back in the  spotlight, and it became synonymous with Pamela Anderson and the show. Its  status was further elevated by often featuring in Anderson’s slow-motion running  scenes, which became a signature visual of the series. 

Main Image: Pamela AndersonZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo