Wet T-shirt

A wet T-shirt contest is an exhibitionistic competition typically featuring young women contestants at a nightclub, bar, or resort. They have traditionally been a staple of college spring break celebrations at locations such as Daytona Beach and Cancún. A wet T-shirt contest is not, however, a swimsuit competition.

Contestants generally wear white or light-colored T-shirts without bras, bikini tops, or other garments beneath. Water (often ice water) is then sprayed or poured onto the participants' chests, causing their T-shirts to turn translucent and cling to their breasts. Contestants may take turns dancing or posing before the audience, with the outcome decided either by crowd reaction or by the opinions of judges.

In racier contests, participants may tear or crop their T-shirts to expose midriffs, cleavage, or the undersides of their breasts. Depending on local laws, participants may or may not be allowed to remove their T-shirts during their performance.

The idea of the wet T-shirt contest originated in Spain in the 1940s, around the same time as the introduction of the Spanish festival La Tomatina. La Tomatina is a large public tomato fight where participants become soaked with juice from tomatoes.

In the United States, skiing filmmaker Dick Barrymore claims in his memoir Breaking Even to have held the first wet T-shirt contest at Sun Valley, Idaho's Boiler Room Bar in January 1971, as part of a promotion for K2 skis. He held another promotional contest for K2 on 10 March 1971 at Aspen, Colorado's The Red Onion restaurant and bar, and the contests were featured in a pictorial in the March 1972 issue of Playboy. Later, wet T-shirt contests made an appearance in Palm Beach, Florida and Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the mid-1970s. Contests were becoming frequently hosted in local bars and restaurants. Many sources claim that the popularity of wet T-shirt contests can be traced back to Jacqueline Bisset's appearance in the 1977 film The Deep, where she swam underwater in several scenes wearing only a white T-shirt.

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