The Bathing Suit

In the 1950s, the bathing suit was designed for a woman with a mature
figure: 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 figure >carved from a potato chip. The mature woman has a choice: she can either shop at the maternity department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away looking like a hippopotamus who escaped from Disney's Fantasia, or she can wander around every 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 what I thought was a 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 suits 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 are protected from shark attacks. The reason for this is that 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 bosom had disappeared! Eventually, I found one boob cowering under my left armpit. It took awhile to find the other one At last I located it flattened beside my seventh rib. The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups. So the mature woman has to wear her bosom 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 fit 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 play dough wearing undersized cling wrap.

As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the
prepubescent salesgirl popped her head through the curtains and said: "Oh, there you are! " admiring the bathing suit. I replied that I wasn't so sure about it, and asked what else she had to show me.

I tried on a cream colored crinkled one that made me look like a ball of masking tape, a floral two piece which gave me the appearance of an oversized napkin in a serving ring. I struggled into a pair of leopard skin bathers with ragged frill 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 and looked like a jelly fish in mourning.

I tried on a bright pink one with such a high cut leg that I thought I would have to wax my eyebrows to wear it.

Finally, I found a suit that fit, 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. When I got home, I read the label which said: "Material may become transparent in water."

I'm determined >to wear it anyway. I'll just have to learn to do the breaststroke in the sand.