Sanwin Beachwear ambassadors: who wore the shorts, and where

Sleek, classy, sexy: those were the words that came to mind straight away.

Benjamin Norris, Bristol, May 2018

With those words Benjamin Norris opens his review of the Tampa, which he wore in Portugal and in Budapest. He is one of the men we call ambassadors. We still keep the photos of well over a hundred of them, 908 in all. This article shows who they are, where they stood and which short they wore.

Who are the Sanwin Beachwear ambassadors?

The ambassadors of Sanwin Beachwear are men who took a Sanwin swim short on a trip in 2018 or 2019 and shared the photos with us. Not models on a set, but travellers at their own destination, with their own phone. Some had an Instagram account of their own, like Alberto (Whereisalby) and Aidon Hammond (aidonadventures).

The photo at the top is Alberto's, on a sun lounger on the east coast of Mauritius in September 2019. He wears the Miami True Blue: plain blue, in the classic fit. That is how the short looks on a trip, not on a hanger.

Which countries did Sanwin ambassadors wear their swim shorts in?

In 19 countries on 6 continents, from Stockholm to Cape Town and from Playa del Carmen to Sydney. We only counted photos where the place is certain. Spain has the most ambassadors with a confirmed place, seven, from Ibiza to León. Greece follows with five, Italy and Brazil with four each.

Floris Baas travelled the furthest. His photos draw a route of eleven weeks: early February 2018 in Cape Town, then the Namib Desert and northern Namibia, back to Cape Town and in April on Ibiza. In Cape Town and in the desert he wore the Venice Crabs, navy with pink crabs. If Ibiza or Aruba are on your own route, see our guides to the Ibiza beach clubs and Eagle Beach in Aruba.

Sanwin Beachwear on the road: ten ambassadors, ten places

Ten ambassadors, each in a different place, with the short they wore. At the top of each caption are the coordinates and the month taken from the photo itself, like a stamp in a passport. Below that, what you find there.

On Nusa Penida, the island off the coast of Bali, Miguel Perelló and Thomas Nelissen photographed the descent to Kelingking Beach in June and July 2018. What it takes to do the island in a day is in our Nusa Penida day trip guide.

Which swim shorts did the ambassadors wear most often?

The Venice, by a distance. Of the well over a hundred ambassadors, seventy wore a Venice in their photos, 29 a Tampa and 20 a Miami. The Venice Crabs showed up most, with nineteen of them, followed by the Venice Ice, the Venice Cocktail, the Venice Gorilla and the Venice Campers.

Why these shorts came along shows in the photos. Take a day in Arraial do Cabo: in the morning by boat from Praia dos Anjos along the bays, a swim at the Gruta Azul, then to a table. That is what Thiago Lopez's Tampa Solid Flamingo Pink is made for: quick dry peach polyester, a tailored cut and a zipped back pocket for the key. The Venice and the Miami have a brief with elastic leg openings and an inside pocket for coins, for the walk from the pool in Phuket to the bar. How the fabric dries is in our piece on quick dry swim trunks.

Miami True BlueAlberto, MauritiusVenice CocktailJim Anastasiou, StavrosTampa Solid Flamingo PinkThiago Lopez, Arraial do CaboVenice IceEmil Sebastian, PhuketVenice CampersAidon Hammond, Palm BeachVenice TequilaMau Diaz Roura, Mykonos

You find all the prints in the Venice swim shorts and the tailored models with buckles in the Tampa swim shorts. Alberto's short at the top comes from the Miami collection. Not sure which size suits you? Check the swim trunks size chart.

How do you know the photos are real?

Because the phone wrote it down. A smartphone stores the time of the shot with every photo, and often the GPS place too. We read that data from the original files, and for each coordinate we looked up the place name in OpenStreetMap. Of the 908 photos, 128 still carry that place; for an ambassador in Portugal the file name gives the place, Sintra.

That also led to corrections. Gianni Manca's photo by the pool was not taken in Monaco, but just across the border in Beausoleil, France. Avelino Robles's sea photo was saved in Granada according to his phone, a city without a beach; so for him we only name Andalusia. Photos without a place do not count towards the 19 countries, however good they are.

Questions about Sanwin Beachwear and its ambassadors