Published: Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Kawakubo Teams With Speedo for Limited Edition Swim Style
By Whitney Beckett with contributions by Nina Jones
Six months before the Summer Olympic Games, Speedo will unveil its fastest swimsuit ever today, Fastskin LZR Racer, with a design twist.
The swimwear brand has collaborated with Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons to create a limited edition version of the FS LZR Racer, which uses a fully bonded fabric that Speedo executives describe as so close-fitting it's almost a second skin.
Kawakubo, who for the last three years has collaborated with Speedo on a capsule collection of nonelite swimwear, created a logo that will be printed along one side of the suit, which incorporates the Japanese character Kokuro, or "heart, mind and spirit," by the calligrapher Inoue Yu-ichi. The designer also has created another graphic element for a special version of the suit for Team USA that will make its debut at the Olympics in Beijing.
"For the launch of the LZR suit, we have used simply the calligraphy element...to denote the ultimate will to win," said Adrian Joffe, managing director of Comme des Garçons, adding that Kawakubo had to work around technical restrictions when creating a design for a hydrodynamic fabric. "We accepted without question that, in this case, technology takes precedence over aesthetics, and we designed around the restraints. Sometimes the greatest creations come out of the strictest restrictions."
In May, Speedo will sell 1,000 limited edition calligraphy pieces. Those suits will be more expensive than the competition version — $600 compared with $550 — and will be sold more exclusively, at Comme stores, online and possibly at one high-end New York retailer. Suits with the Comme graphic will be available in the classic tank suit for women and a tight knee-length style for men for around $100, available online and in Comme boutiques, Speedo said.
The competition version of the LZR will be introduced today in New York, London, Tokyo and Sydney. The elite training suit is swimwear's version of couture: It doesn't make money in itself, but allows Speedo to sell swimsuits to teams and regular folks who don't have the patience to spend 20 minutes squeezing into the body suits (because that's how long it takes).
