WHY IT’S SO HARD TO LOOK HOT IN A WHITE BIKINI

As even Gwynnie fails to pull it off ...

Clinging to the body of a woman over 40 — a woman who may also have given birth a couple of times — a white bikini speaks volumes. it tells of body confidence, hours in the gym... or, perhaps, self- delusion and sheer sartorial recklessness.

For sadly, this is one of the hardest of all fashion items to get right.

Take gwyneth Paltrow. Frolicking in the Mexican surf this week, in a white two- piece by designer swimwear brand Mikoh — her body honed by workouts with celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson — you’d think nothing could go wrong.

Yet the 43-year- old lifestyle guru looked like she’d been caught out in a teenage starter bra and knickers that have seen too many hot spin cycles. But the biggest surprise was when she turned round. With her slightly prepubescent silhouette, the last thing you’d expect is for her to look like gravity has taken its toll.

Yet those unflattering cutaway briefs actually succeed in the impossible — making gwynnie’s pert rear look plump. But that just shows how problematic a white bikini can be.

An unforgiving colour, which has to work hard to get away from its associations with schoolgirl underwear, white can become a beachwear car crash in an instant. And it has little to do with the shape you’re in.

looking good in a white bikini is all down to appropriate support — and the tiny details which stop it looking too much like underwear.

Take Kate Moss and lara Stone, who’ve both made a lucrative living out of their supermodel looks, but whose choice of a bandeau bikini for their beach attire failed to flatter their enviable figures.

Perhaps they should have taken their cue from Ursula Andress, whose ruched and underwired bikini made her name when she emerged from the sea as Honey Ryder in the 1962 James Bond film Dr no.

Or Myleene Klass a generation later, when she showered in a white two-piece which offered just the right amount of lift and coverage on i’m A Celebrity — proving that when it comes to white bikinis, the devil is in the detail. So who manages to look hot in a white bikini — and who should have covered up?

Gwynnie appears to be in her teen bra and knickerss

It’s a tale of two halves for Naomi Campbell, with the flirty ruffled briefs adding curves and playful feminine touch, while the sadlooking bandeau top does nothing for her famously lean torso

After Myleene, every wannabe packs their white bikini for I’m A Celeb. Coronation Street’s Helen Flanagan’s halter style stays just this side of decent

This shapeless, strapless top fails to flatter supermodel Kate Moss’s small bust, and starchy white is probably the least flattering colour for her English Rose complexion