On the beach, in the park and at the lido, a battle as old as time – or at least, as old as Brigitte Bardot – is back. Are you team swimsuit, or team bikini? The bikini is back in the game. For a few summers, the one-piece had the fashion momentum. But in fashion, as in life, change is the one thing you can bet on. So much so that it could be time to cross the floor.
I have always been a bikini person. This has less to do with fashion than with comfort. There are women in swimwear all around us – on adverts, in shop windows, on social media – which makes it easy to think of swimwear as an aesthetic choice. But it is not really – unless you are, or are likely to be, a Love Island contestant. For the rest of us, swimwear is only for rare days when we are very lucky with both the weather and our to-do list. Those days don’t come around all that often, so all that counts is that what you wear makes those days better.
I love a bikini because when it’s hot I want to jump in the water as much as possible, and I don’t like the feeling of sitting around in a wet swimsuit. So I am happier in a bikini, because I’m not soggy. And happier is the point. Also, I think bikinis suit me better. Nothing to do with body shape, but because as a shockingly inelegant swimmer I feel a sporty one-piece oversells my athletic ability. The only beach activity I am proficient at is reading novels.
There is another reason. When I was growing up, one-piece swimsuits were for squares (so were bikini tops, come to that) but the rise of athleisure and the decline of tan culture saw swimsuits leapfrog to the top of the fashion tree a few years ago. Complicated silhouettes – asymmetric, or with keyhole cutouts – made the one-piece directional, and the bikini merely practical. But with the revival of 90s and 2000s looks – boho being this year’s summer story – bikinis have heat again.