Really fast swimmers are mutants. That was the idea implied at the launch and press conference for Speedo's FastSkin FS II swimsuit at Pressure, which had an X-Men-inspired look that promoted the technology and physics behind the suit's design.
Speedo vice president of marketing Craig Brommers and Samantha Bruno of Events in Motion gave the event a laboratory feeling, with caterwaiters dressed in lab coats and Speedo Sports Water served in test tubes. Posters of Olympic swimmers and Speedo spokespeople graphically manipulated to give them lizard-like eyes and gills on the sides of their necks flanked both sides of a long, narrow room packed with low, circular white ottomans, where journalists could sit and watch the presentation. After Summer Sanders introduced a video about the new suits, Olympians Amanda Beard, Lenny Krayzelburg, Michael Phelps and Jenny Thompson appeared as silhouettes behind a white stretch fabric screen, and after some pulsing dance music—and odd disco-inspired poses from the women—emerged from behind the screen with straight faces and attired in the new swimsuits (apparently, mutants don't have facial expressions).
A press conference with the swimmers—who later covered up with black Speedo running suits—followed the presentation.
—Suzanne Ito
Speedo vice president of marketing Craig Brommers and Samantha Bruno of Events in Motion gave the event a laboratory feeling, with caterwaiters dressed in lab coats and Speedo Sports Water served in test tubes. Posters of Olympic swimmers and Speedo spokespeople graphically manipulated to give them lizard-like eyes and gills on the sides of their necks flanked both sides of a long, narrow room packed with low, circular white ottomans, where journalists could sit and watch the presentation. After Summer Sanders introduced a video about the new suits, Olympians Amanda Beard, Lenny Krayzelburg, Michael Phelps and Jenny Thompson appeared as silhouettes behind a white stretch fabric screen, and after some pulsing dance music—and odd disco-inspired poses from the women—emerged from behind the screen with straight faces and attired in the new swimsuits (apparently, mutants don't have facial expressions).
A press conference with the swimmers—who later covered up with black Speedo running suits—followed the presentation.
—Suzanne Ito