The Design Museum’s new show, Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style, curated by fashion historian Amber Butchart, gives a lot of space to the tiniest of outfits. Visitors can see, together for the first time, Pamela Anderson’s Baywatch swimsuit, one of diver Tom Daley’s knitted jumpers, and writer Roger Deakin’s Speedos.

Swimming is a huge subject to do justice to, particularly when our relationship with the water can be so personal. The exhibition narrows its focus slightly to “the last hundred years, through the lens of design”, but by necessity, that’s a wide fisheye lens. It charts a social history of swimming through fashion, touching on graphic, product, infrastructure and spatial design. The result is an engaging, if slightly surface skim over the architecture of pools and swimming spaces, which I was hoping to see more of. An enjoyable jumping-off point rather than a deep dive.

Architects ScottWhitbyStudio, no strangers to unusual commissions, had the brief of designing the show, including the cabinet for Pamela Anderson’s skimpy red swimsuit. It’s nicely done, illuminated and held aloft like a sacred relic, but without a mannequin, does look a bit like a shopping bag. The emphasis is on fashion; I remember Anderson’s character, C.J., doing a lot of slow-motion running, but swimming, not so much. Presented here as pop culture memorabilia, next to a James Bond-inspired terry towelling shorts suit, you’d think tastes had changed since Saturday afternoon TV in the nineties, and yet we’re back to primetime Gladiators, so perhaps not.

…