Should you be wearing a rashie vest on the beach this summer?
They keep the sun off AND flatten your wobbly bits, says AMANDA PLATELL (who’s worn them for years)
BEACHWEAR that banishes bingo wings, s ucks in middle-age spread like super- strength Spanx and protects a delicate decolletage from the ageing rays of the sun sounds like the answer to every woman over 40’s prayers.
But while it may also sound a little too good to be true, when Paul McCartney’s wife Nancy Shevell, emerged from the crystal clear Ibizan waters this week, she was wearing one of these magic garments — a long- sleeved, patterned ‘rash vest’.
These vests, also known as ‘rashies’, were originally invented in the Seventies to stop surfers chafing their skin on their surfboards, but have recently become a must-have on the beach for women who want to protect their skin from the sun, while also covering their wobbly bits.
The vests, which are usually made out of Spandex, nylon or polyester, are proving incredibly popular with celebrities of a certain age, with actresses Nicole Kidman, Courteney Cox and Minnie Driver, Madonna and supermodel Elle Macpherson all pictured in them on the beach.
I’m thrilled that the A-list are finally following my lead, for I’ve been sporting rash vests for almost 20 years — and getting odd looks from strangers on the beach for decades as a result.
As an Aussie, I’ll do anything to protect my skin, but still love to be in the sunshine. My British friends, as they lie on the beach in blazing heat with just factor 10 on, laugh at me sitting under an umbrella in my factor 50, hat and obligatory rashie.
I’ll have the last laugh, though. For nothing — not divorce, depression, recession — destroys a woman’s looks more than the sun. It is our worst enemy, yet few born
It’s like trying squeeze into a surgical glove
in these milder climes seem to really understand the damage it does, even in short bursts.
For proof of this look no further than Nancy Shevell, who at 53 has the smooth skin tone of a woman half her age. And now her secret is out. She’s a sun-shunner.
While many women delude themselves that slathering on a bit of factor 20 will protect their pale skin from the sun while splashing around i n the waves, Nancy obviously knows better.
Whether on holiday each summer at Smith’s Beach, on the southwest coast of Australia, or in the Mediterranean, or even in the chilly sea off Suffolk, I wouldn’t get into the water without a rashie. In fact, I wouldn’t get out in the full holiday sun for more than 10 minutes without my rashie.
Unsurprisingly, with its searing heat and ozone holes that make the sun especially fierce, rash vests were invented in Australia, where they have been popular for years.
And the Aussies, with their love of anything that ends in a rising inflection and an ‘eee’, dubbed them rashies. (They make great pressies at Chrissie for the relies — or great presents at Christmas for the relatives).
Now they’re used f or sun protection in water sports such as windsurfing and canoeing, or just having fun in the waves. Not sloshing your child in factor 50 and wriggling them into a rashie before they hit the beach is akin to child abuse there.
In the Seventies they only came in Lycra, made as they were for super-fit surfers with washboard stomachs, but now you can get them in slimming Spandex (yes!).
They usually provide a sun protection factor of 50+, which prevents burning, plus UV filters, to stop the ultra-violet rays that cause ageing and DNA damage. You can even buy them with factor 100. Extreme, even for me.
No longer built for boys, they’ve become more stylish, in patterns and bright block colours, and are cut in a way which is more flattering to a woman’s figure.
And it’s not just because they protect you from the sun that we Aussies — and the A-list — wear them. For a good rashie can be a woman’s best friend. I swear they can take a stone off you, in all the right places.
The good ones suck you in like a corset. Middle- aged tummy disappears and, worn over a good swimsuit with a bit of support in the bra, they turn a tubby torso into Jessica Rabbit-esque curves. Is it any wonder middle-aged women love them?
As well as hiding those giveaways of middle-age — untoned upper arms and a thickening waist — rashies also prevent other signs of ageing. They protect the areas most vulnerable to sun damage – the neck, décolletage and, in some versions, hands.
The skin is so thin there, it’s the first to wrinkle and get covered in horrible sun spots, which are all too often early signs of skin cancers. And those parts really show a woman’s age. Once you’ve fried them in oil in the sun for years, they never recover.
That’s why rashies need to be
almost up to your chin and reach your fingertips, as perfectly demonstrated by Madonna, who stepped out on the beach in France in 2012 wearing far more clothes than she ever does on stage. At 53 she was covered by a white rashie, matching trousers and a baseball cap — in stark contrast to the topless toyboy she was with.
She also got it right by wearing a bosom-supporting swimsuit underneath, which completes the hourglass look — unlike Courteney Cox, who was pictured in 2007, aged 43, in a baggy rashie with nothing underneath, looking like she was breastfeeding quadruplets. Fair- skinned Nicole Kidman hardly braves the beach without one, and proves that modesty is every bit as sexy as flashing the flesh. She doesn’t need any help tucking in that tummy, so often opts for a light-weight fabric and sporty style, paired with sleek bikini bottoms.
Sporty supermodel Elle Macpherson, a fellow Aussie and a big fan of rashies, takes full advantage of one of their perks — they enable you to stay warm in the water for hours.
They act like a wetsuit and trap a thin layer of warm air between your body and the rashie, keeping out the cold and enabling keen surfers like Elle to stay in the waves as long as they like.
And think of all the extra exercise you can get surfing and swimming while your bikini- clad sisters are fleeing the water after ten minutes with goose bumps to bake themselves old and wrinkled in the sunshine.
But while these celebrities might make rashies look chic, they aren’t for the faint-hearted.
Getting into — and out of — them is pure pantomime, like trying to squeeze into a surgical glove. For the most flattering look they have to be skin tight, which means dragging it over your head, wriggling your arms down the slim tubes of sleeves, hoiking it up under your arms then stretching it down over a tummy that’s usually overindulged on holiday.
I have to admit getting out of it isn’t a ladylike process, either. I usually get stuck half-way through, have to cry to my boyfriend for help, then adopt the half-brace position as he peels it off, along with a cascade of wet sand.
Yet, despite these indignities, ladies of a certain age should bear in mind that there is nothing like a rashie to take inches off the waist and years off the decolletage — just remember to pack a man with a sense of humour to peel you out of it.