Swimwear's quiet revolution

Just over a decade ago, Londoners were in uproar over a series of tube station ads asking women if they were 'beach body ready.'

The ads, which featured a bikini-clad model, were withdrawn after 70,000 people signed a petition claiming they promoted an unhealthy body image.

London's mayor Sadiq Khan agreed, banning any advertising that would make anyone "ashamed of their bodies" on the city's transport network (though other brands with a more inclusive message weren’t complaining).

Since then, it’s not only advertising that has evolved, but swimwear too. At the Design Museum over the weekend, I visited an exhibition called ‘Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style,’ which celebrates “the full spectrum of the design of swimming - from sports performance and fashion, to architecture.”

On display were iconic and eye-catching pieces, from Pamela Anderson’s red Baywatch swimsuit to the Into the Sea full-coverage swimsuit and hijab - a collaboration between Easkey Britton, a surfer and scientist, and Shirin Gerami, Iran’s first female triathlete.

The exhibition also spotlighted contemporary brands like Girls Chronically Rock, an adaptive swimwear line created by a designer living with muscular dystrophy, and the gender-neutral brand Beefcake Swimwear, whose sizes range from XS to 5XL.

Who knows when these brands will grace our billboards, but the message was clear: you no longer have to look far to find swimwear options for every body.

The exhibition is on until August 17 at the Design Museum in London.

A civil rights anniversary

35 years ago, on a sweltering day in March 1990, hundreds of protesters abandoned their wheelchairs and crawled up the hot stone steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. to demand greater rights for people with disabilities.

That moment spurred the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was signed into law on July 26, 1990.

To understand the impact of the ADA, it’s worth considering what life was like for Americans with disabilities before it came into force.

Before 1990, there were few accommodations in public spaces like restaurants and movie theatres.

“Until then, if you were in a wheelchair, a movie theater had a right to kick you out because you could be a fire hazard,” Tony Coelho, the congressman who first introduced the ADA in 1986 and co-sponsored the legislation, told the Human Potential at Work podcast.

It also wasn’t uncommon for people to be fired because of their disability or for job seekers to be questioned about it in job interviews.

"That's why I decided that we had to have something to get our basic civil rights and that's what the ADA is all about," Coelho said.

The struggle didn't end there, of course. But today's battles look different: designing AI that works for everyone, ending sub-minimum wages for workers with disabilities, and building technology that creates opportunities instead of barriers.

If you want to learn more about the past and present challenges, my curation for the latest edition of the Earbuds newsletter is a good place to start. I recommend five podcast episodes, including one from Made For Us, that take you from the Capitol Crawl to today's frontlines. Check out my top picks.

Let me know what you thought of today’s post. Have you come across any inclusive (or exclusive) ads in your city? Send me a photo!

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