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.
Poolside: What to Wear Around the Water in Europe
What to wear poolside in Europe: the shirt, shorts and shoes that turn a swim brief into an outfit, plus how France, Italy and Spain each read the rules.
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The swimming is not the hard bit. Any man can get into the water. The hard bit is the ninety minutes either side of it, the walk down, the lunch, the two hours on a lounger, the drink on the terrace at six, and this is where British and Irish holidaymakers historically come unstuck. Not because of the swimsuit. Because of everything worn with it.
Get the surrounding kit right and the swim brief stops being a statement and becomes what it is everywhere from Biarritz to Bodrum: normal clothes for a hot place near water.
The principle: arrive dressed, swim undressed
This is the whole continental trick, observed in every decent Mediterranean resort and beach club. Nobody walks through a hotel lobby, a restaurant or a town square in swimwear alone. They arrive covered, uncover at the water, and cover again before they go anywhere else. The swim brief is worn confidently at the pool and never worn to buy a coffee three streets away.
Coming from a culture where men wander a supermarket in wet shorts the moment the temperature hits twenty two degrees, this takes a small adjustment. It is also the single change that makes a man look like he has been coming here for years. The French Pool Rule: Where Swim Briefs Are the Law
The uniform
The suit. A plain, well fitting swim brief in navy, black, deep green or a proper saturated colour. Plain outperforms pattern almost everywhere, and dark outperforms light in the specific matter of getting out of the water. navy swim brief ยท square leg swim short Your First Speedo: The Complete Buying Guide
The shirt. One short sleeved linen or camp collar shirt, worn open over the suit for the walk, lunch and the loungers. This is the most important garment on the list and the one most men skip. It converts swimwear into an outfit. linen camp collar shirt
The shorts. A pair of dry linen or cotton shorts to pull on over the suit when you leave the water's immediate area. Light, packable, no logos.
The shoes. Espadrilles, leather sandals or plain slides. Trainers with socks at a pool is the one sock rule nobody needs explained, though the rest are worth reading. The Sock Doctrine: The Right Sock for the Right Occasion
The extras. Sunglasses, a towel that is not from the hotel bathroom, and a small bag that holds all of the above. That is the entire kit and it weighs almost nothing, which is the recurring miracle of packing around a swim brief rather than three pairs of board shorts. Travel Light: The One-Bag Case for Briefs
Reading the room, country by country
France runs the strictest and clearest system. Pools require a slip de bain, loose shorts are refused entry, and the rule is enforced with a total lack of drama. It is the easiest country in Europe to be a swim brief wearer, because the choice has been made for you.
Italy and Spain are relaxed about the suit and particular about the walk. Wear whatever you like in the water; put a shirt on before the promenade, and certainly before lunch. A Summer in Italy: What to Pack (Spoiler: Slips)
Greece and Portugal sit somewhere in between, with beach bars far more forgiving than town centres. The old rule holds anyway: sand, fine; streets, shirt.
Hotel and beach clubs across all of it are the most swim brief friendly places on earth, and the more expensive the lounger, the more likely the man on it is wearing one.
The terrace, at six
The swim ends, and this is the transition men get wrong by staying in a damp suit until dinner. Rinse, change into dry clothes properly, and let the suit dry flat in the shade rather than on a hot balcony rail, which halves its life. Chlorine, Salt and Sun: How to Make a Swim Brief Last
Then linen trousers or dry shorts, the same shirt now buttoned, and the day is over cleanly. Nobody has seen a wet patch. Nobody has watched you change under a towel in a car park, which we save for the Irish Sea in February. The Sea Swimmer's Case for the Swim Brief
The point of all of it
None of this is about hiding the swim brief. It is the opposite. Wearing the right thing on either side of the swim is what allows the suit itself to be completely unremarkable, which is the state every continental man reaches by about the age of nineteen and half of us never manage at all. Dress for the pool at the pool, and for the town in the town. The rest looks after itself.