A question for swimsuit manufacturers
It's summer here in Australia and department store catalogues are filled with tall, thin, or tall curvy, women modelling this years swimsuit styles and fabrics.
They're not much different from previous years. Colourful and pretty.
Some magazines have articles on choosing the right swimsuit for your body shape, but they still focus on regular types, thin, pear shaped, apple shaped, top heavy etc.
Where are the swimsuits for older, SHORT people, around five feet tall, and shaped more like a dumpling on legs, than like Elle McPherson?
The people who look more like a Ma Kettle cookie jar, with layers of squishy roundness?
It's all very well someone saying, "just buy the larger size." That just doesn't always work. It might fit around me quite well, but it will also be far too long and I'd have to hitch it up at the waist and tie it tight, or swim with the crotch dangling around my knees (slight exaggeration there) and the shoulder straps would have to be tied up in bows to shorten them.
Somebody please make swimsuits for us dumplings, who no longer have, or never had, flat bellies.
One piece swimsuits.
Swimsuits that are easy to get into without help would be appreciated, many of us have dodgy backs, hips, and shoulders after many years of carting kids and groceries hither and yon.
And please, no "control" panels that squish us and make it hard to breathe.
They're not much different from previous years. Colourful and pretty.
Some magazines have articles on choosing the right swimsuit for your body shape, but they still focus on regular types, thin, pear shaped, apple shaped, top heavy etc.
Where are the swimsuits for older, SHORT people, around five feet tall, and shaped more like a dumpling on legs, than like Elle McPherson?
The people who look more like a Ma Kettle cookie jar, with layers of squishy roundness?
It's all very well someone saying, "just buy the larger size." That just doesn't always work. It might fit around me quite well, but it will also be far too long and I'd have to hitch it up at the waist and tie it tight, or swim with the crotch dangling around my knees (slight exaggeration there) and the shoulder straps would have to be tied up in bows to shorten them.
Somebody please make swimsuits for us dumplings, who no longer have, or never had, flat bellies.
One piece swimsuits.
Swimsuits that are easy to get into without help would be appreciated, many of us have dodgy backs, hips, and shoulders after many years of carting kids and groceries hither and yon.
And please, no "control" panels that squish us and make it hard to breathe.
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I hear you. And as a tall person have to say the sizing is a tad weird there too. It is very, very hard to find a swimsuit which fits and doesn't cut into intimate parts of my anatomy, or alternatively swing in the breeze.
ReplyDeletePS: I have a query going with Australia Post, who still insists your parcel was delivered. If I haven't heard from them (or you) tomorrow morning I will send another. Can you send me an email confirming your address (so I can double check I didn't get it wrong).
DeleteElephant's Child; I found the parcel after receiving your email. It was left in the cupboard on my front porch, I have it there for packages that don't fit through the mailbox slot, but don't check it every day. Thank you.
DeleteMy problem with swimsuits, as well as sizing, is they are all so tight fitting and hard to wriggle into.
Isn't it a real problem getting a swimsuit that is suitable let alone to fit.
ReplyDeleteI'm taller than you but need volume in certain areas :)
I don't go swimming anymore because I couldn't find a swimsuit to fit, then years on I found two but they are not good fitting ones either, so I know what you mean..they forget the older Australian when it comes to swimwear...
Merry Christmas to you and your family...all the best, Margaret
Margaret-whiteangel; I need the volume all over, being mostly a round dumpling shape, but need it to be shorter from shoulder to chest and from waist to crotch.
DeleteMerry Christmas.
It´s different here. Here they always have XXL models, men and women.
ReplyDeleteAnd also those one piece swimsuits, also some that "hide" a belly.
In some things I simply go to the kid´s section. Or, as now, Hubby has to sew to make trousers fit my size, poor man, that.
(I shrinked from 1,64m to 1,58m - he still has his 1,84m, if I keep shrinking we´ll be the odd couple some day!)
Iris Flavia; XXL is good for those who are larger, but do they also fit XXL SHORT people?
DeleteI'm only 1.52m, but round and fat, like roly poly, like a dumpling, with different size fittings for each body part.
I hope you can find a suitable suit! You need a break from that heat.
ReplyDeleteVal; I could go to one of those places that make dance costumes and leotards, they'd measure me and make something to fit, but I'd have to mortgage the house to pay for it.
DeleteWe are having some cooler weather right now, only in the 30C's for a few days.
At the beach I still go topless, just because as you say they do not fit, but I sure can find swim trunks or the lower half of a bikini, that wont stay in the water when I get out of it. I am not an overly tall person, but my legs are short, so my torso is rather long and rotund. If the swimsuit fits my middle parts, it's too short and the straps saw into my shoulders with every swim stroke, if the length fits, it's flabbery all over the width. I once found one, that fit. I use this one for the indoor swimming place, but it is now worn thin (think micro-holes in fthe fabric) and lost a lot of colour from the chemicals used there.
ReplyDeleteSo yes - let's clamour for makers of swimsuit to realize that people have all possible sizes and forms!
DeleteUglemor; I haven't been topless since I was three. Now it would be worse, the boobs are huge since turning 55, Mother Nature's post menopausal tricks that happens to too many women. My torso is quite short, so whatever fits around me is too long.
DeleteSeems it is much easier for blokes of a similar age.
ReplyDeleteAndrew; yes, much easier since you only have to fit the bottom half and board shorts do that quite well. Just buy to fit your waist measurement and that's it.
DeleteAnd this is why, if i swim, i do so wearing shorts and a t-shirt (with a sports bra under). Nothing else fits, and it's not comfortable, but all i do is paddle about a bit anyway.
ReplyDeletemessymimi; I do the same when I go to the beach. I don't actually swim so much as just jump in and get wet, maybe splash around a bit, but shorts and a t-shirt, which take some time to dry so I stay cool on the way home again.
DeleteAmen. I went swimsuit shopping a few years ago and the horror of it has kept me out of the water ever since. I think the exposed flesh did it for me. When you lose over 40 pounds, your skin no longer fits anywhere.
ReplyDeleteArkansas Patti; I wonder if subconsciously that's why I don't bother so much with losing the 40 pounds I need to lose? Of course if I did, I could stuff all that looseness into a wetsuit and nobody would know...
DeleteJust wear a t-shirt over your undies...and to hell with it! :)
ReplyDeleteLee; undies? On the beach? That might work if I wore boxer shorts, but maybe bike shorts would work too. Most of my shorts are denim jeans shorts because that's the most comfortable.
DeleteI hear you, River. It seems we are about the same body shape and size. I'm just under 5 ft. and shaped "like a dumpling on legs" too :)
ReplyDeleteI sew (and I think you do too) and the most recent suit I bought is too long in the body but I plan to alter it in the crotch to make the body shorter, while the straps are simply ties that go around the neck so I can just tie them to make them shorter. But, yes, to save us all that trouble, why not bring out a line of short, wide suits, for goodness' sake!
jenny_o; I no longer sew. I was never all that good at it anyway and these days my hands hurt too much. I could possibly buy a too long suit that fits around and take it to one of those places that does alterations and have her take a tuck in at the waist. I remember doing that with flannelette pyjama pants when the legs were always too long, turn them inside out, sew a two inch tuck just above the hem and they'd fit nicely.
DeletePerhaps some manufacturer or anybody who knows one or works for one, will read this and next year there will be a range of specialised fittings available. Something that isn't so stretchy tight you need a lever to get into it.