article needs additional citations for verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . march 2008 learn how and when to remove this template message jantzen type subsidiary industry apparel accessories founded portland oregon 1910 headquarters portland oregon united states products swimwear for professional and recreational swimming parent perry ellis international slogan the suit that changed bathing to swimming website www.jantzen.com footnotes references entrance at former jantzen headquarters jantzen is a brand of swimwear that was established in 1916 and first appeared in the city of portland oregon united states . the brand name later replaced the name of the parent company that manufactured the branded products . the brand featured a logo image of a young woman dressed in a red one piece swimsuit and bathing hat assuming a diving posture with outstretched arms and an arched back . known as the jantzen diving girl the image in various forms became famous throughout the world during the early twentieth century . contents 1 history 1.1 origin 1.2 designs 1.3 brand name 1.4 garment description 1.5 logo 1.6 development 1.7 ownership and portfolio changes 2 see also 3 references 4 external links history edit origin edit john a. zehntbauer and carl jantzen founded the portland knitting company the predecessor of jantzen inc in january 1910 in portland oregon . 1 it was a small knitting concern located in downtown portland and they produced sweaters woolen hosiery and other knitted goods in the upstairs space and sold them in the retail outlet downstairs . designs edit the founders were members of the portland rowing club and in 1913 the company was asked to provide a rowing suit for use in the chilly mornings on the willamette river . 1 the story as told by zehntbauer in the company paper the jantzen yarns i waited on him and took his order for these rowing trunks to be made of a stitch like that of a cuff of a sweater so that they would stay up without a drawstring . after he tried them he liked them so well that he came back for another pair and other members of the club heard about them saw them and came in and ordered trunks like them . nearly every member of the club who rowed had a pair . later on this same member came to me and asked if we could not make him a bathing suit of the same material ... . a suit was made for him and he went to the ocean to bathe in the cold water . when he came back he came into the store and told us that it was heavy and one could not swim well in it but that he was well satisfied because it was so much warmer than any suit that he had ever had before and that it made ocean bathing a pleasure . ... this experience gave us the idea that a bathing suit made of this stitch only in lighter weight would be an excellent garment . we discussed this between ourselves and decided that we would order a needle bed for our sweater machine that would be fine enough to knit a rib stitch bathing suit in a weight that would be comfortable . roy carl joe gerber and i were constantly in the water those days either in the y. m. c. a. swimming pool or in the river and we began to experiment for our own use on swimming suits made of this fine elastic fabric . we soon developed a suit which we found was the most excellent garment for swimming that we had ever seen . 2 the one piece garment of pure wool that carl jantzen designed eventually became the prototype for the rib stitch swimsuits that were first produced in 1915 . brand name edit after weeks of discussion and searching for a name which we could use as a trade mark we were unable to agree upon any of the many names which were submitted to us . we were using the brand p. k. at the time the initials of the portland knitting company ... both the names zehntbauer and jantzen were suggested to us by our friends but neither of us was willing to use our own name because it did not sound right to us ... combinations were also suggested ; one i remember was jan zen or to be used without the hyphen janzen . another was portknit . up to the very last minute no one could decide to use either of the names suggested so one day shortly previous to the time mr. gerber brought over his proposed advertising program i was in his office to order stationery which needed to be printed at once as we had waited as long as possible to make a decision on the trademark before printing new stationery . after a short conference i gave him the order to go ahead and print the stationery using the jantzen trademark on all of it . the name of the company of course was not affected being portland knitting company making jantzen trade marked merchandise . 3 following world war i a national advertising campaign was launched with advertisements illustrating jantzen suits placed in vogue and the old life magazine . jantzen was a leader in promotion of its new product . the cover of the ads featured the red diving girl which became adopted as the logo of the company and recognizable worldwide . garment description edit it was around this time that the company started to promote the idea of the swimsuit as opposed to the bathing suit and the tag line the suit that changed bathing to swimming vintage jantzen billboard in 1919 and 1920 we advertised jantzen bathing suits . it was not until 1921 that mr. dodson first conceived the idea of using the name swimming suit instead of bathing suit . up to this time we had never heard the name swimming suit used and we had been selling bathing suits for years and had come in contact with all kinds of advertising of these garments which consisted then entirely of newspaper advertising by retailers or trade paper advertising by manufacturers . so we are certain the name swimming suit was never used in advertising . mr. dodson was manager of the broadway retail store at the time and i remember distinctly the twinkle in his eye as he suggested the use of the name in our advertising . so from 1921 we discontinued the use of the name bathing suits and used swimming suits in all our copy . since then many manufacturers throughout the world have advertised swimming suits in place of bathing suits . 4 logo edit jantzen s iconic diving girl was designed by frank and florenz clark . she first made her appearance in advertisements in 1920 wearing a daring red suit stocking cap and stockings and first appeared on jantzen swimming suits in 1923 . over the years the stockings and stocking cap were dropped and in the late 1940s the suit became strapless . the whole design was modernized again in the 1980s . the diving girl remains a recognized international brand and is one of the longest lived apparel icons . 1920s 1940s 2000s development edit swim in a jantzen sand sculpture advertisement by john suchomlin at manly beach sydney c1940 . heritage sign at museum railway station sydney during the inter war years of the late 1920s and early 1930s the company established overseas manufacturing facilities and sales teams notably in europe . by 1932 jantzen was reportedly the seventh most known trademark in the world . in the 1940s business perked up after jantzen added sweaters girdles and activewear to its basic swimwear line . the bikini was introduced in france in 1946 to set the style for brevity in swimwear and became a worldwide fashion classic . throughout the 1970s and 1980s jantzen recognized that working women wanted attractive beachwear for weekends and vacations . in some resort areas swim separates cover ups and ankle length beach skirts completed many swimsuit ensembles . jantzen began to work with nylon and spandex to add stretch that holds shape . jantzen also introduced a trikini combining a string bikini worn underneath a lacy semi transparent maillot . ownership and portfolio changes edit in 1980 jantzen was purchased by blue bell and blue bell was acquired by vanity fair corporation in 1986 . this acquisition was a disaster for jantzen and led to its demise . in 1995 the company dropped the production of menswear to concentrate on women s apparel returning to its roots in swimsuits . in 2002 the jantzen trademark was purchased by perry ellis international inc. 1 this included the licenses of nike and jag swimwear . see also edit list of companies based in oregon jantzen beach list of swimwear brands references edit a b c muldoon katy august 7 2010 . jantzen s 100 year history reveals how portland made swimwear changed the world and vice versa . the oregonian . portland ore . retrieved 8 august 2010 . j. a. zehntbauer jantzen yarns december 1928 j. a. zehntbauer jantzen yarns january 1929 . j. a. zehntbauer jantzen yarns march 1929 . external links edit a brief history of jantzen from jantzen.com as archived 2011 jantzen through the decades from janzten.com jantzen red diving girl oregon history project jantzen swimwear collection retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title jantzen & oldid 738637204 categories swimwear manufacturerscompanies based in portland oregonperry ellis international brandsamerican companies established in 19101910 establishments in oregonhidden categories articles needing additional references from march 2008all articles needing additional references navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 10 september 2016 at 05 25 . text is available under the creative commons attribution 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