Swimsuit Season

It's swimsuit season again. Not that you'd guess if you step outdoors into the pouring rain! But for those of us off to sunnier climes at some point in the next couple of months, making sure we have light, cool, skimpyish clothes and swimwear we feel good in can be stressful and frustrating. Warning: I'm in the mood for a bit of a rant.

Why is it that if a woman needs a bikini top with a decent amount of support in a cup size larger than a C, we have to pay more for our swimwear and can't just pop into any old high street shop and pick up a bikini or one one piece for £19.99 like all the smaller busted women out there? I've been into every single shop and scoured the websites online and I am so annoyed to find that the only costumes that fit me a) cost far more than the non-cup size ones and b) seem to come in gross, ugly, flowery fabrics more suitable for my great grandmother c) don't provide good comfort - halter necks, when you have a big bust, are not great. My neck gets quite tired of holding my bosoms up all morning!

Have you ever tried to buy a bikini with a 32E top? The cheapest one I could find (apart from M&S where none of them appealed to me at all) was £64. £64!!!! From Bravissimo. That's crazy. And I didn't even like it, the colours and pattern were garish and far too bright. I loved a stripy one I saw in a high street shop for £20 but even the size 16 top (two tiny little triangles attached to a string no thicker than a shoe lace) barely covered me.

I have had this problem since I was 15 years old. I can still remember the horrible shopping trips to buy me swimwear with my mother, and sadly, infuriatingly, very little has changed.

Why is it that women with larger breasts are not catered for? I don't get it. Is there not a market out there for attractive swimsuits in large sizes? But then, I know it's the same for all clothes in larger sizes. There is so little choice, so little available. A few retailers include the larger sizes in their collections but walk into most high street shops or designer stores and you'll be lucky to find anything above a size 16.

Surely this is an untapped market? How is it that some clever entrepreneur hasn't cottoned on the fact that women of all sizes need to dress and like to dress well? Is it just that designers are all prejudiced or that there's no way to get investment or support to create attractive clothes and swimwear that fit all women, not just slim ones?

I am utterly fed up. I want to go and buy myself a pretty bikini which fits me well without having to spend a fortune. As it stands I have to make do; with colours I don't like and shapes that don't suit me - and all at a ridiculous price.

I would love to hear your experience of buying swimwear and if anyone has any great shops or websites where you can buy affordable and attractive ones in a 32E, do let me know.

The bikini and me

I’ve just come back from a week in Italy with my daughter. Every day was pretty much the same. We’d get up, put on our bikinis and something light and short and head for the pool.

As I lay on my sun lounger doing a spot of people watching (one of my favourite activities) I was struck by just how much skin there was on show. How tiny the bikinis were and how even the older women were wearing bikinis as opposed to one piece swim suits.

I noticed the different body shapes, skin colours, skin tones and textures… it was all very interesting. And wonderful.

And then I wondered: when my great grandmother was my age, I imagine that the scene would have been very different. There probably wouldn’t have been a pool to go to but had we been at the beach the women's bodies would have been almost completely covered up. Wearing something like this maybe?

I wonder how women felt about their bodies on the beach in those days? I know that women at the turn of the century wanted to be plump. Slender equaled poor or unhealthy. There was no glamour in being tanned and bony - like so many of these Italian women I was surrounded by. Hip bones jutting out, flat (and in some cases taut) stomachs. In those days round was considered attractive. As I’ve written before, I don’t believe in any ideal when it comes to women’s bodies. Curvy is no more womanly than straight. Thin, slim, plump, round, very round, lumpy, smooth… Beauty is not about our size or shape. Fashion maybe but not true beauty. There’s much more to it than the physical body. But that’s for another blog post. Here my curiosity is about how I feel walking around virtually naked in a public place and how different my experience would have been had I been born a Victorian. As I lay there by the pool in Italy last week I imagined wearing something like this (without the fetching bonnet!)


And I quite liked the idea. Despite the fact that I like the way I look and regularly do look in the mirror at my naked body with appreciation and gratitude. I realised I’d feel much, much more comfortable at the poolside with more on. Paradoxically, I prefer my naked body to my bikini-clad one. It’s something about the shape of the bikini which doesn’t quite work with the shape of my body. It fits well enough and I like the style and colour but I really think my body looks lovelier without it. And as I'm not into nudism or topless sunbathing, I don't have much choice.

I’m not a prude. I’m not body-shy at all; I’ll change openly in a women only changing room and don’t feel the need to cover up or be quick. Yet when pondering the question of bikinis there was no doubt in my mind I’d go back to the 1900’s in a flash.

I’m not advocating the return of the swim-dress (my terminology; I’m sure that’s not what they were called) nor am I urging us all to go out and buy burkinis. It’s simply that for me, the bikini is not an item of clothing (is there really enough fabric to warrant that definition?) I feel terribly comfortable in.

And so, I mused, it’s no wonder so many women hate the summer. It’s no wonder the idea of going to the pool or the beach is the stuff of nightmares, panic inducing for any woman over a size 12. Women - and it must be the vast majority of us - who could never in a million years (or after any number of diets and fitness regimes, however hard we tried) look like this:


From what I could see, quite a few of the Milanese women at this particular pool were trying very hard indeed to do just that and despite my careful, and discreet, observation, I could not find one of them that quite managed it. Thankfully, I would add.

Today a part of me wishes I could wind back the clock (only where swimwear is concerned you understand). I’ve recently begun experimenting with dress-making - Maybe I'll make myself a funky swim-dress. Bad idea? I'd just look too odd? Maybe I'd set a new trend! Or, maybe not.