Jantzen Swimwear

The Story Teller

The Story Teller
Jun 27, 2003
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Jantzen Swimwear
“To know is nothing at all, to imagine is everything.”
—Anatole France
John and Roy Zehntbauer started a small knitting company in Portland, Oregon, in 1910 and soon invited their friend Carl Jantzen to join them. While tinkering with the knitting machinery, Jantzen developed a rib-stitching idea that produced a fabric with excellent stretching qualities. Originally considered for use in sweaters, it was used to produce a pair of trunks for a friend who was a member of the Portland Rowing Club. The rower returned to report that the trunks were the best-fitting he had ever worn, and he ordered a full suit for swimming. The swimming suit was also well received, but it was too heavy when wet. Zehntbauer and Jantzen experimented and soon developed a fabric that provided the proper comfort and lightness.
In 1916 the company introduced its bathing suit. To promote the item in the firm’s 1920 Line List Catalogue, a drawing was made of a diving girl in a red suit. When people came asking for the picture and young men began putting it on their car windows, Zehntbauer and Jantzen decided to capitalize on the popular symbol. Renaming their company Jantzen Knitting Mills, they promoted the now famous diving girl in their advertising. With their bathing suits becoming more popular, the manufacturers abandoned their other knit lines. By 1922, they stopped using the term “bathing” suits, and in 1924 promoted the slogan, “The suit that changed bathing to swimming.” From these beginnings, the founders went on to build Jantzen into one of the nation’s most innovative and successful swimwear companies.
Consider This: Even a good product needs a promotional idea that will catch the eye of the public, and become in itself a “spokesman” for the product.
Submitted by Richard