Discover iSwim — Start

iSwim Started with Swimwear

In 2009, iSwim began developing its own products and website.

At the time, iSwim did not yet have the complete pattern classifications or semi-custom system we have today. But one thing was clear from the beginning: we wanted to do more than simply make men’s intimate apparel smaller or lower-rise. We wanted less fabric to still fit the body comfortably.

That same year, the Mister International world final was held in Taiwan, and iSwim provided the official swimwear for the competition. Some of the briefs, trunks, and specially constructed designs from that time are still preserved in the iSwim archive today.

Looking back at those early products, the design system was not yet as clearly structured as it is today. But low-rise cuts, narrow waistbands, close fits, and dimensional construction were already beginning to appear.

For the newly established iSwim, swimwear was also a direct way to understand men’s intimate apparel. The less fabric there is, and the closer the pattern sits to the body, the more directly every curve, every point of tension, and every seam affects the way it feels when worn.

Less fabric does not mean there is less to consider. It means there is more.

The Pattern We Wanted, and the Pattern We Could Make

Many of iSwim’s earliest products still had to accommodate the patternmaking and sewing methods our makers were most familiar with at the time.

Naturally, makers rely on techniques built through years of experience—the methods they know best and can execute most consistently. But we gradually realized that if every line began with what was easier to make, the finished product would not necessarily be what we actually wanted to create.

Where should the waistband sit? How should the leg openings avoid restricting the movement of the thighs? When a design becomes lower-rise, should we reduce coverage, or should we also reduce the space the body needs? A front piece is only a flat piece of fabric when laid out—but once worn, how should it form the three-dimensional space a male body needs?

Beginning in 2010, we gradually incorporated more of our own design ideas directly into the patterns, and iSwim’s cuts began moving away from the traditional patternmaking approaches used in our earliest products.

Instead of deciding the design based on which lines were easier to make, we first decided how it should fit and feel—then found a way to make it.

Creating Three-Dimensional Space from Flat Fabric

NUDIST, introduced in 2010, was an important example of this early development.

We began thinking more deliberately about three-dimensional space in the front piece. Rather than simply enlarging the front or adding more fabric, we used curves, crotch length, leg-opening angles, and fabric stretch to make a flat piece of fabric form the shape the body needed once worn.

That idea has remained part of iSwim ever since.

Pouch sizes, curves, and structures would continue to change over the years, but the problem we were trying to solve remained the same:

It is not simply about adding space. It is about shaping the space.

Looking back at the NUDIST beta preserved in our archive today, you can already see an early version of this approach to three-dimensional patternmaking.

From Five Blue-Label Sizes to Three Red-Label Sizes

Early iSwim underwear used a five-size system identified by blue labels.

In December 2010, we reorganized the sizing and patterns of our underwear, changing from five sizes to three core sizes—M, L, and XL. This marked the beginning of the first-generation “Red Label” underwear.

This was not simply a matter of reducing five sizes to three.

By coordinating the pattern, fabric stretch, and waistband tension, we wanted close-fitting underwear to retain enough freedom of movement and stretch, while giving each of the three core sizes—M, L, and XL—a more complete fitting range.

The proportions of this M, L, and XL core sizing system were established at that point and have remained in use ever since. Underwear continues to use M, L, and XL as its three core sizes, while S and XXL remain part of the swimwear sizing system.

The True 15 mm Waistband

Narrow waistbands were another design element that gradually took shape during the same period.

Producing a narrower waistband was not easy in those early years. The narrower the waistband, the more sensitive the construction became to sewing, fabric, elastic, and tension control. Making it narrow did not automatically make it comfortable, nor did it guarantee that it would lie flat.

So iSwim continued refining both the pattern and construction of its narrow-waistband designs.

In 2011, after finding that some of the elastic and sewing thread used in our early products were not performing as well as we wanted, we proactively contacted customers to offer replacements and began searching for more suitable materials.

By 2012, iSwim had begun using custom-made elastic and more suitable sewing thread. The construction of our narrow waistbands gradually became stable enough for the “true 15 mm waistband” to become a specification we could continue using.

In October 2012, the second-generation Red Label further improved stretch and construction, establishing a two-stage stretch design.

Our goal was never simply to make it “as narrow as possible.” What mattered was maintaining the necessary tension, freedom of movement, and comfort even after reducing the amount of fabric.

A Close Fit Is Not Compression

iSwim design drawings and notes from around 2012 were already repeatedly emphasizing one idea:

A close fit is not compression.

A low-rise design should not simply move the waistband downward while making the leg openings and front piece tighter.

Whether the waistband lies flat, whether the leg openings interfere with movement, whether the front piece provides enough space, and where the tension goes when the fabric stretches—these may seem like small differences, but they all affect how the garment feels on the body.

Looking back at those design notes today, many of the principles that would later define iSwim were already beginning to take shape.

They were not a set of ideas written years later to create a brand story. They emerged gradually from the products themselves as we continued designing and making them.

A Design Language of Our Own Begins to Take Shape

From the swimwear of 2009, to NUDIST and the first-generation Red Label in 2010, and then to the true 15 mm waistband, custom elastic, and stretch structures that matured by 2012, iSwim gradually moved beyond the traditional methods familiar to our early makers and began establishing its own design and construction logic.

At this point, iSwim was still far from the complete pattern system we have today.

The back piece did not yet have the clear classifications that would come later. Different rises, pouches, and structures would still go through many rounds of adjustment. Some ideas would need several more years before finding the form that truly worked.

The pattern should follow the body—not make the body adapt to the pattern.

From there, the lines and experience accumulated during these early years began developing into distinct structures.

From narrow-bottom half-coverage backs, Brazilian thongs, and Y-back thongs, to the later V-shaped thongs, V-strings, one-string G-strings, and one-string open-back designs, iSwim continued exploring different back pieces and line structures to rethink the relationship between coverage, lines, and the body.

They were not simply a series of product names that appeared one after another. They were different stages along the same path of design evolution.

Next: Discover iSwim — Evolve