ABC Radio – Alan and Morris discuss togs of the future
Business Futurist | Foresight Strategist
If you’ve read this far, something probably connected.
Maybe it put words to something you’d been sensing but couldn’t quite land. Maybe it made something complicated feel clearer. Maybe it unsettled a position you thought you’d settled.
Good. That’s where this work lives.
Not forecasting. Not scenarios at 2050. Not more noise. What’s already moving. The shifts most organisations can’t yet see, name, or understand the full weight of. What it means. What to do about it while it’s still a possibility, not a problem. Short term and long.
Morris Misel has been doing this for 30 years across 160 industries, with boards, executive teams, and leadership groups in Australia and internationally. More than 2,800 engagements. Over a million people a year through conferences, boardrooms, and media.
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Choose Forward.
The next generation of swimwear is being shaped by smart textiles, sustainable materials, and performance science converging simultaneously. UV-reactive fabrics, fibres made from recycled ocean plastics, and temperature-adaptive materials are already arriving in elite and athletic markets. What registers as fashion today is the downstream result of material science decisions made five years earlier.
Microplastic pollution from synthetic fibres is now a documented environmental problem, and the swimwear industry is directly implicated. This is driving real investment in natural and recycled fibre alternatives across manufacturing. Brands that ignore this are not just behind on sustainability — they are accumulating a reputational liability that compounds the longer they defer serious action.
The industry is being pushed hard on size inclusivity, gender-neutral design, and authentic representation in marketing. These are not fringe demands — they reflect a genuine shift in how people expect to be seen and served by consumer brands. Retailers who treat this as a compliance exercise rather than a genuine design brief tend to lose ground to those who build it into their product from the start.
Leisure patterns are changing — shorter, more frequent breaks replacing one long annual holiday, rising interest in cold-water swimming and urban outdoor pools, and growing crossover between athletic and casual wear. These shifts reshape where people wear swimwear, how often they buy it, and what versatility and performance they expect. The market is not shrinking — it is fragmenting into more specific use cases.
Three signals matter most: what elite competitive swimmers are wearing now (it reaches the consumer market in roughly five to eight years), what textile manufacturing regulations are advancing globally, and where the wellness and outdoor recreation sectors are growing. Where those three lines converge is where the next generation of swimwear demand is already forming.
