The original dive skins were tight jeans with a hooded pullover or neoprene jacket, known as a "Top and Levi's", used for swimming, freediving and SCUBA diving. This is one of the best skindiving and scuba suits or diveskins, offering protection from overexposure to the sun, stings, and abrasion. When broken-in properly and shrunk-to-fit, jeans are practical for outdoor activities, most athletics, and aquatics.

Wetsuit Alternative

The famous "Top and Levi's" remains one of the best skindiving and scuba diveskins, offering protection from overexposure to the sun, stings, cuts, and abrasion.

At some dive locations, just suiting-up can be a chore. Here jeans, a T-shirt, a hooded sweatshirt or dive top are all that you might need for a safe, fun dive; and you won't need to change after diving.

Many swimmers and divers combine their jeans with dive fins, mask and snorkle and have an incredibly efficient set of water wear at a fraction of the cost of lycra. Most swimmers and diver combine their 'skins' with dive fins and a mask/snorkel for a very practical and functional set of swim/dive gear. They offer minimal thermal protection but good protection against sun, abrasion, and stings.

Jeans can be purchased slim fit or tapered and will shrink to fit. They can also be tucked into dive boots or cuffed to reduce drag underwater. The serge in the denim fabric of well fitting jeans acts like shark dendrils and funnels the water over the swimmer/diver's body allowing them to become hydrodynamic and swim faster underwater. With street clothes and a T-shirt or a neoprene dive top, you have the basics for a safe and fun dive.

Thermal Protection

Levis 501, 505 and 512 Red Tab are the best styles from Levis Strauss for swimming and diving. In the water your jeans provide similar thermal protection as 1 mm neoprene. However, jeans provide poor thermal characteristics out of the water on cold days. The wet cotton cools down rather quickly, especially if there is any wind chill. Wet jeans stay wet and get cold in even moderate climates. The solution in cooler weather is to add a layer of lightweight nylon rainwear on top to prevent windchill.

When worn with a 2-3 mm neoprene top, you can swim and dive in jeans quite comfortably in water 3-6°C cooler than you normally would. Jeans skins are effective in water above 18°C degrees. In water below 18°C, depending on the water athlete's tolerance to cold, a neoprene dive suit or skin should be worn to avoid hypothermia.

In warm weather and climates where a complete diveskin is needed underwater, but not at the warmer surface (which might cause over-heating), the neoprene jacket can be removed and you can swim with just your jeans and a T-shirt or lycra top.

In very warm water a boilersuit is good protection against cuts and scrapes, but is heavy when wet after the dive and more difficult to take off than when it is dry.

Negative Buoyancy

Some divers believe that jeans make excellent diving skins. They have a slight negative buoyancy, enabling a diver, either on scuba or freediving, to descend underwater more easily than with an all-neoprene diveskin, which is positively buoyant, and requires lead weights to achieve the same result.

This is especially important in the ocean where salt water makes the diver more buoyant than in fresh water. The very same jeans that might feel 'heavy' to a beginner swimmer when they go into a pool, are a second skin to the experienced intrepid swimmer/diver in open water.

Popular Use

Jeans are common for spearfishing dives on the oil rigs. They keep your flesh from being shredded if you get dragged across a barnacle encrusted pipe by a large fish.

They also are worn over wet suits to protect them. Helldivers and other rig divers in Louisiana wear jeans, flannel shirts. Even a few commercial divers in the Gulf wear nothing but jeans and flannel shirts or hoodies.

In the South and Southwest USA they wear jeans to almost all activities, at one time or another, including many weddings. People swim and dive, usually shallow, in jeans all the time.

Reader Comments

"I have heard of divers wearing a sweat shirt and jeans over their wetsuit when diving oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. That way their wetsuit doesn't get torn by the barnicles when chasing a fish while spearfishing or when they get pushed into a leg by the current."
Jim Bob, New Orleans  

"I remember people diving in Levis a very long time ago, because they couldn't afford wetsuits and wanted something to protect them from getting scratched and cut up or stung. I have occasionally seen divers wearing Levis over a wetsuit. I suppose you could do it to provide some cheap protection for your wetsuit, or maybe as a fashion statement.

But as was pointed out near the top of this page, wet cotton is just about the worst choice you can make for heat loss when you get out of the water. Jeans have their place in diving, but don't wear your brand new ones. Get the cheap ones from the thrift store.

Terry, San Diego