Bathing suit choice and peer pressure
Posted by Aloïs Guinut on Wednesday, June 24, 2020 · 12 Comments
I do not get a bathing suit each year.
Instead, I tend to wait until they surrender because I hate the task of hunting one.
You are no stranger to the horrendous spotlights from the stores that create us cellulite in places we would never have guessed.
Last time I bought a bathing suit was the summer 2017 in the south of Italy (aaaah that time sans-corona).
My pal and I had just spent the day at the beach where all italian bums were out.
Which made me very jealous since my own was confined in a boring french conservative bathing suit.
Therefore, the day after, when a crochet bathing suit winked at me from the window of a multi-brand store I jumped right in.
It was that kind of stores that are disappearing where the products are very carefully curated and a few are behind glassed or not shown at all so you have to ask the saleswoman what you are looking for. I said: “one-piece, sexy in the front and back”. Turned out the crochet one was not a match but she came back with an adorable black bathing suit with some mexican looking magical print on it (you check the accuracy of my description here).
My bum and I spent a lovely week in Italy, unbothered by the public opinion since everyone was wearing similar attires.
Yet, when I came back to île de Ré for another week at the beach (think of it as a posh venue), I was not so sure I was comfortable, in a sea of bum-covering bathing suits, to display my own.
But, oh well, I loved the thing so I decided to wear it anyways and have been since three years (along with some even older ones I own). Yet each time I walk to the ocean, I feel a bit observed when in Italy I was comfortably invisible.
That’s the same if you decide to go topless nowadays. When I was a kid, all women did it and it was normal. but now, sorry to disappoint those who thought it was still a thing in France, it’s rare when you spot a nipple at île de Ré.
When everyone does it, no one cares, when you the only one, you feel seen.
That’s why, on the beach especially, we tend to adopt the trends that are popular around us.
And when I say “around us” I mean as locally as around the swimming pool of the house you rented.
Say your friends never take off their tops, you would feel ill at ease to do so.
On the opposite, if they all do, you might feel bad about wanting to be covered.
That’s our herd instinct I guess.
And you? Are you the kind to check the local trends and be discreet, or the kind to wear your carioca thong in the Hamptons?
Cover collage: Ysé, Bain de minuit
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