Tip of the Week: Make a Swimsuit Last Longer

January 19, 2010

Ever get frustrated by your swimsuit wearing out because of the chlorine in a swimming pool? Although lycra swimsuits will fade in a couple of months, you expect nylon training suits to last forever. Most nylon suits actually fail because the stitching comes loose rather than the material wearing out. The suit literally bursts at the seams, often in 6 months or less. The way to fix this is to hand sew it back up yourself! All you need is a simple needle and thread, and stitch the loose seams several times. The manual placement of stitching several times adds rigidity and means that the chlorine has to take out several layers of your thread in order to burst the seams again. Personally, I have made a nylon suit last for 4 years, swimming every day by manually sewing the seams that break. The suit won’t last forever. After about 4 years, the strings will start to rot and melt from the inside, making the suit un-wearable. But wearing the same swimsuit for 4 years sure saves a lot of money!

View previous swimming tips.