Skants
were made from 1959 and were the original bikini underwear for men.
Over the years they were made in the US by Coopers and under license in
Canada (by Monarch), Britain (by Lyle & Scott) and Australia (by
Speedo), starting with just white they all made a range of colours and
increasingly more vibrant patterns in the 1970's, adding lycra and
polyester fabrics to the original stretch nylon versions.
I remember these Skants so well.
ReplyDeleteI went to a boarding school in England where the uniform was white Y-fronts for everyday wear and a jockstrap for sports. My father, who was a hockey player, made a big fuss about wearing a jockstrap because, he said, it was designed to do a specific job and did it well. He was a very good father about teaching me to shave and what clothes to wear on what occasions - with all sorts of odd advice, like "not to wear brown shoes in Town after 7.00pm" and other satorial necessities of the time... I particularly remember him telling me when I got my first DJs that I should wear boxer shorts because sitting for a long meal in Y-fronts would cause the wool trousers to get a line impression of the seams which were very wide and thick.
When I got into the senior school, we were allowed to wear mufti in order, so said the school prospectus, to build up a "wardrobe" for our first jobs, and my father took me out to get some clothes. By the early- to mid-70s, London fashion was becoming very much more Continental in style partly because we had joined the then Common Market and out went the flares and bell-bottoms and in came Italian tapered trousers with boots and baggy shirts. At the back of one of the gentlemen's outfitters in Jermyn Street, the son of the proprietor had started his own outlet and my father found me a pair of very stylish tapered trousers in a Cavalry twill going for a song owing to my 30" waist... They fitted perfectly, but the bulky Y-fronts beneath showed and the kid behind the counter pointed this out and said I needed to change my underwear. On the counter was a stand with various sizes of Jockey Skants in various colours. They had of course been around since the late 1940s and had gradually become narrower at the sides as the years had passed, to become real bikinis by my day. I could hardly believe my ears when my father said, "Alright, then, one for each day of the week and one for the wash", and I marched out with eight pairs, several in light colours which were very sheer.
Just about that time, the school entered the 20th century and put Skants on the school sports uniform list in lieu of a jockstrap and we all went out and bought them... I can remember Matron going nuts about it and telling everyone they'd go sterile because they were so tight. We weren't supposed to wear them for everyday wear but we got round the problem by marking the labels with indelible ink with our initials and bribing the lady who did the washing not to boil them and we had a secret, separate bin in the washroom to put them in.
My father, who had been in the Navy and ran the house like a ship as soon as my mother was at our house in the country never stood on ceremony, but the only time I was ever embarrassed was the time I found him padding around in his underwear. Not an uncommon event, except that he had gone out and bought himself some Skants, too, and he looked better in them than I did.
I wore and wore those Skants till they were no longer on the market and had worn through and I have never, ever encountered a better-designed, more comfortable, all-purpose and very sexy design of underwear since...
I wish they would bring them back. I think they would still probably sell like hotcakes.
Sun rise, sunset, and now the kids these days are wearing those huge underpants my granfather used to wear and turn their noses up at anything vaguely resembling a bikini, let alone a sports strap. Perhaps one day they'll come back into fashion.
Retroman, I can't seem to contact you via e-mail on this topic but I have subscribed, so you may now have my e-mail address. I have built up quite a library of pictures of these Skants which, depending on your taste, you may like to share. Please let me know.
ReplyDeleteHi,
DeleteThanks for your message.
I still have and wear Jockey Skants. I was able to find some new ones in Sydney when I was there in 2000.
My email is retroman1958@gmail.com.
I would love to see your photos.
Johnnie
In my opinion the International Skants Tropez Briefs of the 70s were the finest quality and most comfortable underwear ever. I saw that someone recently paid $45 USD for one pair of them on ebay (or a similar auction site.) The folks who run the Jockey underwear company should pay attention to sales like that and (hopefully) give some serious thought to reissuing that timeless garment.
ReplyDelete