Swim records were broken in Speedo brand silk suits in the 1930s, and the company was the first to introduce the use of nylon in the 1950s and later nylon/elastane in the 1970s. Speedo's most recent technological advances are found in the Fastskin, Fastskin FS II series and the LZR Racer suit. Throughout the company's history, though, it seemed each design innovation was met with great controversy. Clare Dennis was nearly disqualified from her record-breaking Olympic meet because her suit showed too much skin; early Speedo bikinis were banned from some Australian beaches; more recently, the NASA technology in the LZR Racer suit Michael Phelps wore at the Beijing Olympics was the subject of great media scrutiny.
In 2000, British designer and former competitive swimmer Fiona Fairhurst was named as a finalist for European Inventor of the Year. Fairhurst helped Speedo's Aqualab design team invent the first-of-its-kind Fastskin swimsuit. Inspired by the varying skin texture of a shark, Fairhurst told the BBC that she was "looking to develop a fabric that mimics nature". Both the Fastskin and Fastkskin FS II are textured with bumps and ridges in key places, similar to those on a shark's skin. These ridges are claimed to channel the water over the swimmer's body in a more efficient manner than traditional material suits. However, research in 2012 has suggested that the artificial sharkskin patterning does not benefit human swimmers, whose body movement is different from sharks.
In addition, the suits are custom designed for the type of stroke the swimmer will use as well as being engineered differently for women and for men. These high-tech suits make use of elastic compression materials to limit muscle oscillation and to compress the swimmer's body, while in other areas a more flexible fabric is used to allow greater range of motion. Leaving no detail overlooked, the design team also uses low-profile seams. According to author Frank Vizard, the Fastskin suits reduce drag by up to four per cent. Speedo adapted this new fabric technology for the 2006 Winter Olympics. The full-bodied Fastskin FSII Ice suits were debuted by the silver medal winning American women's bobsled team.
By the time the bobsledders were given the opportunity to don their Fastskin suits, the line had already gone through several evolutions including the Fastskin FS-II and Fastskin FS-Pro. From the very beginning, these drag reducing suits were met with great resistance. At issue was Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA) rule 10.7, which stated "No swimmer shall use any device that may aid his speed, buoyancy, or endurance during a competition (such as webbed gloves, flippers, fins etc). Goggles may be worn". Early in 2000, Speedo hand-delivered their new Fastskin suits to 150 Olympic hopefuls and promised 6,000 more would be made available for Olympic trials. Fearing the possibility of Speedo-clad race winners being stripped of medals due to challenges, the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport to examine the legality of the FINA-sanctioned suits. In May that year, a CAS-appointed arbitrator backed the FINA ruling allowing use of the suits for Olympic tryouts. Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates, however, said in a press conference that their swimmers would be allowed to wear the futuristic neck to ankle covering suits, but would do so "at their own risk". Coates later stated that the ruling he sought was whether the suits should be classified as costumes or devices.
Professor Emeritus of Exercise and Nutritional sciences at San Diego State University, Brent S. Rushall claimed in a report sent to CAS that the suits were – by FINA's definition and based on manufacturer's claims – in fact devices, rather than costumes and are therefore in violation of the FINA rule, which disallows equipment such as fins or flippers. In the report, Rushall equally criticises Adidas (who had a similarly designed bodysuit) and Speedo for giving FINA members presents and declares that these members should recuse themselves from ruling on the legality of these suits.
Ultimately, the suits were approved for use in the Sydney Olympics and in December 2000 the super-suit earned a place on Popular Science's "100 Best of What's New", alongside the US Navy's F-16 replacement and Kodak's Smart Digital Picture Frame with built-in modem.
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Four years later, the FSII debuted in the Athens summer games. While this next stage in swimwear evolution was quickly approved by FINA, it was not without controversy. Speedo competitor TYR developed a similar full body suit with detached sleeves, which the company calls Aqua Bands. Both TYR's detached Aqua bands and Speedo FSII's attached sleeves are designed to essentially "grip" the water on the inner forearm. TYR maintained that essentially the only difference between their suit and Speedo's was whether the sleeves were attached. Despite this, FINA did not approve TYR's armbands. In 2004, 47 medals were won by swimmers wearing Fastskin II.
In late 2011, in time for the holiday season, Speedo introduced a new Fastskin3 suit. This suit comes in two styles, Elite and Super Elite. Speedo developed the Fastskin3 as a racing "system", consisting of a newly introduced cap, goggles, and competition suit. Michael Phelps is the principal advertiser for the Fastskin3 line of suits, as Ryan Lochte has been reported to prefer the older Fastskin LZR Elite suits. In succession to the LZR Pro and Elite, Speedo switched the branding for their technical suits from "Fastskin LZR Racer" to "Fastskin", continuing the trend they left off in 2008 when they debuted the LZR Racer. The male suit is available as a normal-cut suit and a high-waisted suit that utilises the space in between the belly button and waist of the male swimmer. The core of Speedo's advertising campaign for the new line touted the benefits of "becoming one" with the suit. Speedo advertises up to 16.6% drag reduction and 11% improved oxygen economy. The system was sold featuring "fit point markers", allowing the swimmer to line up the suit, cap, and goggles to achieve an ideal fit and appearance. FINA approved this suit shortly after it was launched, and the suit was anticipated to be used at the London 2012 Olympics by a majority of athletes, along with the Arena PowerSkin Carbon Pro suit, which debuted in early 2012. However, a series of high-profile seam failures and high costs for poor performance gain meant that the suit was a commercial failure. Most swimmers, including Phelps, ended up using a revamped version of the LZR Elite. The cap and a cut-down version of the "Super Elite" goggles are still sold today.
As of the Rio 2016 Olympics, Speedo's lineup of suits consisted of its flagship "LZR Racer X", known for an "x" pattern of silver kinetic taping; a second generation Elite dubbed the "LZR Elite 2"; and an entry-level "LZR Pro". The LZR X performed slightly better than the FS3 in terms of swimmer preference, but Speedo failed to capture much attention at the Games as Mizuno, a Japanese manufacturer, had introduced a new suit (the "GX-Sonic III") designed to circumvent the FINA regulations and aid the swimmer in new ways. Specifically, the Mizuno suit comes in two variants: a sprinter ("ST") variant with stiff taping on the inside of the suit along the hamstrings, designed to help the upbeat of a kick at the end of a race as a swimmer's energy fades, while the multi-racer ("MR") uses two layers of the FINA-approved textile to decrease air permeability drastically, thereby trapping considerable excess air and making a swimmer more buoyant just like with the original LZR Racer (see below). Not much marketing material has appeared in the West, as the GX-Sonic has only been primarily aimed at the small Japanese market and required special importing internationally, so there are no numerical performance claims available, but many unsigned standout swimmers like Joseph Schooling (since signed by Speedo), Caeleb Dressel (since signed by Speedo), and Anthony Ervin (signed by Finis but allowed to choose his own suit) chose to wear the Mizuno suit over any of Speedo's offerings and won many golds in that suit. Additionally, the de facto trademark appearance of some collegiate teams like the Texas Longhorns at the NCAA National Championships is in Mizuno now, as opposed to Speedo.
To combat the rapid uprise of choosing Mizuno among high-performing swimmers, Speedo released a new lineup of suits in 2019, in advance of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Dubbed the "LZR PURE" collection, the lineup consists of two suits: a new high-end LZR Pure Intent, designed to replace the LZR Racer X, borrowing many technologies like hamstring taping from Mizuno's suits, and intended to compete with Mizuno's ST variant of their GX-Sonic series; and a flexible LZR Pure Valor, designed to replace the LZR Elite 2 and compete with the dual-layered MR variant of the GX-Sonic series. Speedo has also released new goggles and a rebranded FS3 cap to go along with the launch.
LZR Racer
Speedo's most controversial move came with 2008's unveiling of the LZR (pronounced "laser") Racer. The super smooth suit, which was optimised with the help of NASA wind tunnels, uses welded seams and multiple woven fabrics to reduce drag by up to six per cent. In addition, the LZR, like the Fastskin, utilises a core stabiliser, which acts almost as a girdle, to reduce muscle movement. This was designed to help the swimmer maintain the proper angle in the water for longer periods of time. Popular Science magazine named the suit one of their "100 Best of What's New '08" list, calling it "The fastest swimsuit in the world". Subsequent research revealed another reason for the suit's success: tiny air bubbles tended to be trapped between the swimmer's body and the suit, lifting the swimmer slightly so that they benefited from lower friction against air as compared to water.
Speedo's website boasts that the LZR Racer was "so fast, it was banned from competition". Indeed, the LZR Racer was banned from international competition by FINA in 2009, along with all full-body polyurethane suits. Men's suits were also banned from extending above the waist or below the knee. Women's suits could not extend past the shoulders or go below the knee.
However, by that time, swimmers wearing the suit had already broken at least 46 world records.
FINA's ban on the LZR Racer and all "hi-tech" suits came shortly before Michael Phelps's 200 meter freestyle loss to Germany's Paul Biedermann at the 2009 FINA World Aquatics Championships in Rome, Italy. Wearing Arena's polyurethane X-Glide suit, Biedermann broke two world records that day and beat Phelps by more than one second. Even though FINA had already approved the ban, it had not been scheduled to go into effect until the following spring. The delay in FINA's hi-tech prohibition and Phelps's unexpected second-place finish (his first loss since 2005) led Phelps's coach Bob Bowman to threaten a boycott of international swim competitions. In the first three days of the eight-day competition, 15 world records were set.
The vague decision by swimming's governing body stated that suit materials would need to be textile, rather than polymer-based, but offered no specific deadline for this changeover to occur.
The reason for the delay, FINA executive director Cornel Marculescu told the AP, is to give manufacturers enough time "to pass from polyurethane to textiles". The ambiguity continued when FINA was unable to define textile. The most specific aspect of the ruling returned men to bare chests and ladies to bare shoulders. The current rule (GR 5.4), as posted on FINA's website, states "Before any swimwear of new design, construction or material is used in competition, the manufacturer of such swimwear must submit the swimwear to FINA and obtain approval of FINA".
Speedo's latest version of the LZR Racer series, the LZR Racer Elite, carries the FINA stamp of approval. The Elite series, like its predecessor utilises welded seams and compression material to sculpt the swimmer's body. The SpeedoUSA website specifically denies the new generation of LZR Racers is a "quick fix". The most recent list of FINA approved swimsuits, which was published in January 2011 lists 78 specific Speedo brand swimsuits among 45 worldwide brands and nearly 720 models. Among them, 71 are Fastskin models and 13 are LZR series suits. Several Speedo designs have been removed from the FINA list including the original LZR Racer, and multiple Fastskin models.
FINA's ban on LZR Racers left Speedo with a significant surplus stock. The obsolete competition suits have found new life, though. London's Chelsea College of Art and Design received a donation of 600 suits, 200 of which were turned into the Chelsea Xpo Pavilion as part of the 2010 London Festival of Architecture project. The pavilion can be seen on the college's campus at the Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground.
Another collaboration between Speedo and academia netted a line of designer fashions. Teams of students from the London College of Fashion, University College Falmouth and the University of Huddersfield have reused the material to create a complete fashion line including casual slacks, jackets, and even different forms of swimwear.
This was not the company's first foray into recycled high fashion, though. In September 2010, sustainable fashion label, From Somewhere announced a new line of dresses made from Speedo's surplus.
