When I was a child in the 1950s, the bathing suit for the mature figure was-boned, trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn as engineered. They were built to hold back and uplift, and they did a good job.
Today's stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent girl with a figure carved from a potato chip.
The mature woman today has a choice, she can either go to the maternity department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, and look like a hippopotamus that escaped from Disney's Fantasia, or she can wander around the department store trying to make a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of fluorescent rubber bands.
What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice, and entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room. The first thing I noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of the stretch material.
The Lycra used in bathing costumes was developed, I believe, by NASA to launch small rockets from a slingshot, which gives the added bonus that if you manage to actually lever yourself into one, you would be protected from shark attacks. Any shark taking a swipe at your passing midriff would immediately suffer whiplash.
I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder strap in place I gasped in horror, my boobs had disappeared! Eventually, I found one boob cowering under my left armpit. It took a while to find the other.
At last I located it flattened beside my seventh rib. The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups.
The mature woman is now meant to wear her boobs spread across her chest like a speed bump. I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take a full view assessment. The bathing suit fit all right, but unfortunately it only fitted
those bits of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from top, bottom and sides. I looked like a lump of Playdoh wearing undersized cling wrap.
As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the prepubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtain, "Oh, there you are," she said, admiring the bathing suit. I replied that I wasn't so sure and asked what else she had to show me. I tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of masking tape, and a floral two-piece that gave the appearance of an over sized napkin in a serving ring.
I struggled into a leopard-skin suit with ragged frills and came out looking like Tarzan's Jane, pregnant with triplets and having a rough day. I tried on a black number with a midriff fringe and looked like a jellyfish in mourning.
Finally, I found a suit that fit - it was a two-piece affair with a shorts-style bottom and a loose blouse-type top. It was cheap, comfortable, and bulge-friendly, so I bought it. My ridiculous search had a successful outcome, I figured.
When I got it home, I found a label that read, "Material might become transparent in water."
So, if you happen to be on the beach or near any other body of water this year and I'm there too, I'll be the one in cut-off jeans and a T-shirt!
You'd better be laughing because life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain, with or without a stylish bathing suit!
"You can't change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying over the future"
Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning the devil says~~"Oh Crap, She's up!"
6 comments:
YES! I remember those old "boney" bathing suits! Now I don't buy bathing suits for all the reasons you mentioned in your post. Yes, I go to the beach and walk in the surf, but I don't wear a bathing suit. Another reason has nothing to do with how I look in swim attire - it has to do with too much sun on my skin.
I'm so glad that I'm not the only one! Sigh. I gave up wearing a bathing suit years ago, even though I would really like to wear one. There just aren't any for 60+ ladies to wear that are modest and don't make us look frumpy. This post made me laugh out loud...again!
Thanks so much Patty!
Love,
J.
Ha, ha.. ! Did I ever tell you that you can write very amusing posts. I saw it before me: you struggling with Tarzan/ Jane like bathing suits!!
You did great on telling about todays bathing suits. Not for me or probably not for any woman my age.
Oh Patty, that has to be one of the more hilarious thing I've read about a bathing suit.
Been there done that for years, and this year is the first time I can remember since babies that I can fit into a small size...Looking forward to the beach in Tahoe and my "smaller" yet modest, bathing suit.
Absolutely hilarious! I woke my husband from his nap with my stifled snickers. That's a prize winning post. The awful truth is that I have to go through the same process shortly. My son is getting married on a houseboat on a lake. Very few people there, but none like me. Tee shirt and shorts it will probably be!
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