Your summer choice: bikinis

You really have to have the body of someone built for nothing but bikini wearing not to feel ridiculous in this summer’s garments,

If I might take a moment to talk about my body? It’s a sort of meaty trunk of flesh, with everything, I thought, largely where it should be, ie 1 x belly, 2 x nipples, 2 x legs, 2 x arms, etc, the former in the middle, the latter closer to the edge. If there were a size 11, it would be that, neither obese nor emaciated, sturdy, effective, and yet, it turns out, entirely the wrong shape for a swimming costume. To begin with, the gussets. Usually there’s a selection of bottoms, from shorts to thongs, but this year, the fashion is for a very narrow chocolate eclair sort of shape that extends between the legs and up towards the belly button, requiring even the blondest of women to depilate almost an acre of flesh. So that’s the gussets.

But I was prepared for that, and indeed had taken it into consideration when selecting swimsuits, leaving behind a number of costumes that, rather than offer a covering for one’s genitals, instead provided a sort of will-this-do mental floss, like a hastily erected crucifix to show where one has buried the cat. But even the kinder gussets provided only a suggestion of arse coverage, the designer perhaps having never seen a human bottom, instead having only studied medical charts about digestion.

Navy Cross Over Design Tie-up Backless Bikini Set

I’ve always enjoyed a bikini. No longer. Today’s bikinis are created only for people such as Love Island contestants, for whom the ability to wear a bikini with confidence is the basis of their career. Purchasing one is as ridiculous as, say, a chef buying a chisel – it is the wrong tool for the job. Haters are going to say, “Didn’t she have a baby? Isn’t she in her mid to late-30s with a largely sedentary lifestyle? Isn’t that why she can’t find a flattering bikini?” To them I’d say, yes yes, but surely even the most Hobnobbed of us should be encouraged to swim? Should expect that, at the very least, a bikini should contain the rudest parts of our body, rather than, as these ones did, offer the merest suggestion of coverage, and that’s standing up. Lying down in one of these fabric panic rooms made of three Doritos threaded together with a kind of lurid vine would cause a whole body to puddle beneath the sun lounger.

Sexy Random Floral Print Cut Out Swimwear

Braided Rope Strappy Design Bikini Set in Yellow

Bikinis though – bikinis, we’ve all held a women’s magazine in June, we all know that we must protect the world from the sight of women in bikinis after the age of 28, what was I thinking? Twist! After a day’s research I can confirm that this season’s all-in-one swimsuits are by far the more obscene choice. They are cut narrowly, to expose the erotic “side-boob”, but if you are larger than a B cup, then they offer a whole teapot of tit to your neighbouring bather. Nothing is adjustable; nothing is safe. At any point you might look to your left and greet an entire breast or buttock that has escaped and has been enjoying your conversation with the waiter for some time, just so so pleased with itself

Black Cross Front Bodycon Bikini Swimwear

There is a trend, this year, for “cut-outs”. These are shapes hacked out of swimsuits in unlikely places to add interest and mystery – is it a swimming costume, is it a bikini? Who knows! The result, apart from inevitable tanning complications, is a costume with built-in landmines – step carefully, women of 2018, for these cut-outs are liable to take a whole breast off. While also creating little pouches of excitable flesh that will burst through the nylon like summer hernias, hello! Hello, I love you!

Black Cut Out V-neck Sleeveless Swimwear

I travelled home gingerly, in this body that had been exposed to me as trouble, resigned to a holiday sat by the side, cheering the children on. Waving with a hand now revealed to me as a swollen meat puppet, balanced on the end of something wobbly, attached to a machine so complicated and mottled that it should not be driven in public, and certainly not in water. Thanks to this season’s swimwear, Center Parcs slides will be safe from the groaning problem of my body, for this year at least.