Things have changed a lot from the 17th century wet suits made from leather that were used when raising the cannons from the warship Vasa.
Early Dry Suits;
Wet Suits; Invented in 1956 1/8", 1/4", 3/8" thick neoprene. No
nylon "sharkskin" that we had a few years back, and certainly no fleece as today.
You just about had to use baby powder, corn starch or soap to get them on.
Pantihose helped then, just as it helps today. Specially if the suit is wet. After
about the third dive, they ripped in the wrong place. Then came the nylon layer
"sharkskin" that made it easy to put on when dry. Colors were black, blue or red. It
was really a question of what colors one could dye the material in. Then came the
striping that one glued on, specially around the glued seams. But they peeled off.
Some people felt that the only way to get more people into diving is to make the
suits more colorful.
The wet suits of that day were just glued together, and readily came apart in
the seams. That made cold water rush in and at that time one aborted the dive. The
neoprene material was not as flexible as today. When you bought a wet suit, you
had all your measurements taken, and the "wet suit guy" would get a pattern
together and glue it together for you. Some people preferred to put a "seam-tape"
over each seam to stop the rip. It was only later that the seams were stitched and
glued, which helped a lot. It took several years of development to get the bad smell
of the neoprene wet suits under control.
Booties; or flipper slippers as they were called
Today's Dry Suits; There is a dry suit manufacturer. MOBBY'S out of Japan,
I believe. Really flashy suits, looks like they would fit on stage in the best of night
clubs in Las Vegas, Nevada. Henderson represented them in this country. After a
few short years they only imported the basic black dry suits. A sad story, but that
is the economics of the industry. They are now back in
spectacular colors, but I imagine, basic black will again become the norm.
