SUSAN CALMAN
Putting off buying a new swimming costume? Our columnist’s ingenious solution to the holiday problem has made her feel positively athletic
on bikini shopping
Like many children of my generation, I was made to wear pyjamas and rescue a brick from the bottom of a cold swimming pool just in case an analogous emergency occurred at some point in my life. I’m telling you this now because it’s important to know that just because I can swim, it doesn’t mean I particularly want to. My reticence regarding aquatic pastimes is twofold. First, when I was seven, my brother told me that great white sharks were often found in Scottish swimming pools, and second, because there’s something even more horrifying than the thought of being eaten alive by a giant fish... Swimming costumes.
When I was younger, I had little choice about what I wore to splash around in. Anything that Marks & Spencer or Debenhams had on offer was the order of the day and, being quite self-conscious, I made sure that the costume was rarely seen. I could have been wearing the finest silks encrusted with the greatest jewels, and they would always have been covered by a sensible towel. It’s often difficult for people to believe, but I’m really rather shy. If at any point I was required to go to the pool as a teenager, I could get from changing room to water quicker than Usain Bolt.
But as I got older and ventured to sunnier climes, I realised that some people seemed to enjoy wearing a swimming costume. Some even (and I still shudder at the thought) wore a bikini! A friend of mine takes more than one costume on holiday and often changes her outfit more than once a day. And on Facebook I once saw an acquaintance make the comment, ‘Just taking six bikinis to Spain this time LOL.’ I unfriended her immediately.
I find it confusing because, if you take that many options
with you, it means you must want people to look at what you’re wearing. My lack of self-confidence prohibits any such exhibition. I don’t like the way I look fully clothed, never mind standing in my bra and pants with a mojito in Magaluf.
Sometimes, however, you have to bite the bullet. Before I went on holiday last year, it became clear that I needed a new costume. I’d had the same one for almost 20 years and even I knew that when one’s gusset reaches one’s knees, one should get something with a tad more elasticity. But where to start? It had been such a long time since I’d had to buy swimwear that I appeared to have lost the ability to choose anything. I wandered around the shops in a panic, trying on suits and realising, with some alarm, that when it came to beach apparel, there was more choice than ever: low cut in the chest area, high cut in the leg area and some with less fabric than you’d find in a tea towel. And to be fair, it’s rather difficult to evaluate how a costume looks on you when you’re standing in grey woollen socks in a changing cubicle, which has harsher lighting than you’d find in an operating theatre.
It was too much to take, so I ran as fast as my legs could carry me back home to my safe space: the internet. After several hours of browsing and a bit of luck, I found the perfect costume, even though it’s absolutely not meant for me. I bought a triathlon suit; one of those things that Olympians who swim, cycle and run wear. It has a demure and very secure top half and the legs are an appropriate length (almost to my knees). When I wear it, I look quite like a Victorian strongman you might have once seen in a circus. I’m happy to strut around like a professional athlete, and I reckon if I’m careful it could last another 20 years before the gusset goes. Turns out swimming costumes are brilliant when you find the right one.
I look quite like a Victorian strongman you might have once seen in the circus