The first thing you expect to be able to do when buying a swimsuit is swim in it, but that doesn’t apply to the Gucci Logo Swimsuit, a $380 designer swimsuit that the company specifically states should not come into contact with chlorine.
The high-end one-piece swimsuit features Gucci’s iconic logo across the bust, cross-over straps, and has a vintage air to it that would have surely made a splash at the pool. But since it’s made of 80 per cent nylon and 20 per cent elastane, two materials that just don’t get along with chlorine, you don’t want to be caught anywhere near a pool in this swimsuit. And Gucci is very upfront about the whole ‘swimsuit you can’t swim in’ thing, to the delight of social media:
“Due to the nature of this particular fabric, this swimsuit should not come into contact with chlorine,” Gucci writes in the product details listed on its website.
As Australian web magazine Whimn points out, this isn’t really a swimsuit, but a ‘swimsuit-inspired swimsuit’, meaning that it has the aesthetic of a one-piece swimsuit, but none of its functionality. In fact, Selfridges, one of the online clothing stores selling this bizarre garment recommends wearing it with “skirts, denim and anything high-rise”.
As you can imagine, Twitter has been having a field day with Gucci’s swimsuit/not a swimsuit:
“Oi I swear Gucci is baiting the world. £290 for a SWIMSUIT that literally says in the product details that you can’t even wear it to swim in,” one user wrote.
“Gucci has a swimsuit that don’t recommend you swim in and it was sold out when I looked on the website,” another person twitter.
But the Italian luxury fashion brand had the last laugh, as its $380 Logo Swimsuit is currently sold out pretty much everywhere. I guess people do care more about making a statement than a garment’s functionality.
If you’re looking for more bizarre clothing items, check out these $100 plastic see-through jeans, or these jeans covered in fake mud. Oh, and let’s not forget about Balenciaga’s $2,300 car mat skirt.