Your First Speedo: The Complete Buying Guide
How to buy your first speedo: the three cuts, getting the fit right, which fabric survives chlorine, what colour to start in and where to wear it first.
The Best Swim Briefs You Can Actually Buy
Six swim briefs worth buying, from club chlorine proof kit to the Mediterranean beach pair, with the honest weakness of each and when cheap is correct.
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Hold a club training brief and a holiday swim brief next to each other and the difference is obvious before you have read a single label. One is matte, slightly stiff, a bit papery under the thumb, and available in colours chosen by somebody who has never been to a beach. The other is glossy, soft, elastic in every direction and printed in something cheerful.
They are not variations on a theme. They are two separate garments built for two separate jobs out of two separate families of fibre, and almost every disappointing swim brief purchase comes from buying one and expecting the other.
The training brief is polyester, usually blended with PBT, and it is engineered to survive chlorine. The beach brief is nylon with a healthy dose of elastane, and it is engineered to feel good, fit closely and hold a colour. Put the beach one in a chlorinated pool four times a week and it will be transparent and baggy by the autumn. Put the training one on in Sicily and you will look like you are about to be timed Poolside: What to Wear Around the Water in Europe.
What follows is six that are worth your money, three from each camp, with the honest weakness attached to every one.
The fibre argument, settled quickly
Chlorine does not attack polyester. It does attack elastane, which is the fibre that gives swimwear its stretch, breaking down the molecular chains that let it recover its shape. That single fact explains the whole market.
A pure polyester or polyester and PBT fabric contains no elastane at all. PBT is a polyester cousin that is naturally, mechanically springy, so the fabric gets its stretch from the crimp in the yarn rather than from a rubber-like fibre. The result is a suit that goes on holding its shape in a heavily chlorinated pool for a year or more, long after a nylon suit has surrendered.
The price of that immunity is feel. A PBT fabric stretches usefully in one direction and grudgingly in the other, it has a dry, slightly rough hand when new, and it never drapes. Nylon and elastane does everything the other way round: soft, four-way stretch, deep saturated colour, glorious to wear, and structurally doomed the moment it meets a serious pool Chlorine, Salt and Sun: How to Make a Swim Brief Last.
Neither is better. Buy for the water you actually swim in.
Speedo Endurance+, the club standard
The default training brief in the English-speaking world, and deservedly so. Speedo publishes the composition of Endurance+ as half polyester and half PBT, which means no elastane in the fabric at all, and the practical consequence is a suit that survives a serious training load without going see-through or slack at the seat.
It is cut close and high on the leg in the way a racing brief has to be, the drawcord is properly anchored, and the fabric behaves identically wet and dry. Buy one, swim four times a week, and it will still be a functional garment when a nylon pair bought on the same day has been thrown away twice Brief, Jammer or Shorts: What to Actually Wear for Lap Swimming.
Where it falls down: it feels like sports equipment, because it is. New, the fabric is stiff and slightly abrasive against the skin until it has had a few swims. The one-way stretch makes getting into it less pleasant than a soft nylon pair, the sizing runs small and is unforgiving of a guess, and the colour range is functional rather than joyful chlorine resistant polyester swim brief.
Arena Team Solid, the European club standard
The Italian answer, and the one you see on European pool decks more than any other. Arena's team briefs use its MaxLife fabric, published as 100 percent polyester with a substantial proportion made from recycled bottles, and the whole design brief is longevity under chlorine.
It sits a little differently from the Speedo: slightly higher at the hip on most builds, with a firmer waistband and a fractionally more compressive fit. Serious club swimmers tend to have strong opinions about which of the two suits their body, and the only way to find out is to own one of each. Both are correct answers The Club Print: Custom Swim Briefs and the Best Kit in Sport.
Where it falls down: the pure polyester construction is even less giving than a PBT blend, so it can feel restrictive on a broad frame and it takes several swims to soften. Team ranges are deliberately plain. And the fit is drawn for a lean swimmer's body, which means a lot of recreational swimmers find it tight across the seat in the size they expected to need.
TYR Durafast Elite, for people who cannot bear a stiff suit
TYR's Durafast Elite fabric is published as roughly 92 percent polyester and 8 percent spandex, and that small elastane content is the entire point of the garment. It is markedly softer than a PBT blend, it stretches in every direction, and it is far more pleasant to pull on at six in the morning.
For a swimmer who trains a few times a week rather than every day, this is a sensible middle position: most of the chlorine resistance of a polyester suit with a fraction of the discomfort. The prints are also better than anything else in the training category, which sounds trivial and is not, given that a lot of men avoid swim briefs entirely because everything available looks institutional Why Men Are Frightened of Colour.
Where it falls down: there is elastane in it, and chlorine eats elastane. However robust the polyester content, this will not match a genuinely elastane-free suit over years of heavy pool use, and the brand's durability claims should be read as claims. It is also cut generously by racing standards, so it is not the suit for anyone chasing a time.
Decathlon Nabaiji, and when cheap is simply correct
Here is the part that most roundups will not print. If you swim two or three times a week in a public pool, wear the suit for exercise rather than for looking at, and have no interest in the difference between two shades of navy, the correct purchase is Decathlon's own brand and you should stop reading and go and buy one.
Nabaiji swim briefs are made from chlorine-resistant polyester fabrics, cut on sensible blocks, with drawcords that work and seams that hold budget polyester swim brief. They cost a small fraction of a branded club suit. They will not last quite as long, the fabric is not quite as good, and the finishing is a step down. None of that matters at the price, because you can replace it twice and still be ahead, and because the marginal comfort you are giving up is genuinely small Your First Speedo: The Complete Buying Guide.
Where it falls down: quality control is less consistent than the specialist brands, so two identical-looking pairs can differ slightly in fit. The size range is narrower. Ranges are discontinued and reintroduced without warning, so the pair you loved may simply not exist next season. And if you swim daily, the durability gap does eventually start to cost you.
Budgy Smuggler, for the beach and the argument
Australian, cheerfully named, and the brand that did more than any other to make the swim brief funny in a way that is affectionate rather than sneering. The classic range is nylon and elastane, made in Australia, and it is unapologetically a beach garment.
Nylon elastane is a joy to wear. It is soft, it moves in every direction, it dries quickly, and it takes colour and print in a way polyester simply cannot. Budgy Smuggler leans into that with a range that is loud on purpose, and there is something genuinely useful in a brand that has made the garment approachable for men who would never have walked into a swimwear shop otherwise Break Out the Budgy Smugglers: The Aussie BBQ Guide to Swim Briefs.
Where it falls down: it is nylon and elastane, so a chlorinated pool will destroy it, and anyone buying it as a training suit has misunderstood the product. The cut is high on the leg and closer than a lot of first-time buyers expect. And a bright print will fade in strong sun and salt considerably faster than a solid colour will nylon elastane swim brief.
Budgy Smuggler classic swim brief
Hom, for the Mediterranean version
The French take, from the house that effectively created the modern men's slip market in the 1960s, and the entry here for anyone whose swimming happens on a beach in a country where nobody finds any of this remarkable.
Hom's swim briefs are nylon and elastane in a fine, dense knit, cut lower at the hip than an Australian or American equivalent and shaped at the front rather than gathered, which is the continental construction habit showing through. The colours are considered rather than shouted, the fit is closer, and the whole thing reads as clothing rather than as kit The French Pool Rule: Where Swim Briefs Are the Law.
Where it falls down: it is expensive for a garment you will wear on maybe thirty days a year. The lower rise and shallower side are not universally flattering and are a shock if you have only ever worn a squarer cut. It has the same chlorine vulnerability as everything else in this fibre. And European sizing will catch you out if you convert from a trouser size instead of measuring.
Who should not buy which
Do not buy Endurance+ or an Arena team brief for a holiday. They are excellent and they will make you look like you are between heats.
Do not buy TYR Durafast Elite if you swim every day in a hard-chlorinated pool. The elastane content that makes it comfortable is the same content that will fail first, and a PBT blend is the honest answer for that load.
Do not buy Decathlon if you are a competitive swimmer at any level where a suit's fit affects your stroke, or if you need to buy the same model repeatedly over several years.
Do not buy Budgy Smuggler or Hom for lap swimming in a pool. It is not a durability quibble; it is the wrong fibre for the environment and it will fail visibly and quickly.
Do not buy any of them a size up to feel more comfortable. A swim brief that is loose in the water drags, rides and stops supporting, and every man who has done this has done it once The Sea Swimmer's Case for the Swim Brief.
The drag suit, and why club swimmers own an old one
One thing worth knowing if you swim seriously. A drag suit is a loose mesh or double-layer brief worn over a normal one in training to increase resistance, and the traditional version is simply an old suit that has gone baggy, kept for exactly this purpose.
It is a good habit and a cheap one. The suit that has lost its recovery is not rubbish; it is a training tool, and pulling it off before a set is a small piece of theatre that has survived every change in the sport, including the technology arms race that ended in the ban on non-textile racing suits The Suit Ban of 2010: When Swimming Outlawed Its Own Records.
What to actually do
Own two. That is the entire conclusion and it is cheaper than it sounds, because the training pair and the beach pair are both inexpensive relative to almost any other garment you own.
The training pair should be polyester or a polyester and PBT blend, bought slightly tighter than feels natural, and replaced when it stops recovering rather than when it looks tired. The beach pair should be nylon and elastane, in a colour you actually like, and it should never see a chlorinated pool. Rinse both in cold fresh water the moment you are out of the water, dry them in shade rather than sun, and never wring them out.
That is not a compromise between two products. It is recognising that they were never the same product.
Questions people ask
What is the most chlorine resistant swim brief fabric?
Polyester, and particularly polyester blended with PBT, because neither fibre is damaged by chlorine and neither relies on elastane for stretch. PBT gets its springiness from the mechanical crimp in the yarn instead. A fabric described as 100 percent polyester or as a polyester and PBT blend will hold its shape in a heavily chlorinated pool for a year or more of regular training, while a nylon and elastane suit will typically go slack and semi-transparent within a few months of the same use.
How long should a swim brief last?
A polyester or PBT training brief swum four or five times a week in a chlorinated pool should stay usable for around a year, sometimes considerably longer. A nylon and elastane suit in the same water may be finished in a season. In salt water and sunshine both last much longer, and the main enemies become ultraviolet light and sun cream rather than chlorine. Rinsing in cold fresh water immediately after every swim makes a genuine, measurable difference to all of them.
Are cheap swim briefs any good?
Often, yes. Decathlon's own brand and other supermarket-level polyester briefs use the same fibre families as the specialist brands, and for anyone swimming a few times a week for fitness the difference is finishing and consistency rather than function. Buy cheap if you swim recreationally. Buy a specialist brand if you race, if fit affects your stroke, or if you want to be able to replace exactly the same model in three years.
Should I buy a swim brief or a jammer?
A brief if you want the least drag, the fastest drying, the smallest packed size and the widest acceptance at European pools; a jammer if you want thigh coverage, some compression, or simply feel more comfortable in more fabric. Racing swimmers use both, and the choice at club level is genuine preference rather than performance. A brief is also the only one of the two that works equally well on a beach.