Essays

May 14, 2021

My One-Piece, Myself

photo via @maliamillsnyc

 By Rebecca Ackermann

Every year, the warming weather reminds us that we have bodies and will soon be called upon to display them. But after months of quarantine, when the luckiest of us have eschewed social requirements like real pants and haircuts, this particular “hot girl summer” carries even more heightened expectations of butterfly-like emergence. I’m too old to be considered a girl and San Francisco summer means fire season and light jackets, not scorching beaches, but still, I’ve opened countless browser tabs in a reignited search for the perfect one-piece swimsuit. 

What makes the perfect one-piece? Well, it’s simple yet special, flattering yet not too try-hard, sexy but not obscene, family-friendly without being matronly, luxurious yet affordable. But the most important job of the perfect one-piece? Its combination of one thin layer of fabric and two to four design details must telegraph an entire identity. That’s a lot of pressure per square inch, I know, but it demands equal effort from its wearer: To find the perfect one-piece, you have to know who you are, and be confident enough in who that is to click purchase. After years rejecting all the one-piece options as “just not me,” I have come to realize that my problem is more fundamental than deciding on a shelf or bra cups. 

Self-knowledge has never been my strength. I’m good at reading a room and writing a place for myself within it. I’m good at fitting in and cutting off any pieces of myself that stick out. But there’s nowhere to hide in the limited outline of a one-piece swimsuit and maybe that’s why I’ve never felt comfortable in one. What I’ve been searching for before now has been a true neutral garment, a cloak of invisibility that offers the illusion that I can become anything in any context. That kind of malleable insecurity may have passed for charming in my 20s; in my late 30s it has started to congeal into a self-sabotage jelly. But I’ve learned a lot about myself in the past year and a half while being privileged enough to be trapped indoors with my real selves day and night: my tech-career self, my creative self, my mothering self, my married self, my perfectionist self and my self who loves watching TikToks while drinking homemade iced coffee out of a glass straw in bed. I’ve made art for the first time in a decade, I’m taking real time off work for the first time in two. I’ve cut my own hair (pretty well actually!) and tried to publish a novel. So, I decided that this year, I am ready to find the perfect one-piece swimsuit… for me. With high hopes, I ordered a suite of suit options and spent afternoons slipping on different versions of myself in private, to figure out who I want to bring out into the sun this summer.

This is a solid suit that inspires trust, but not exactly lust. It checks so many boxes competently: good boob support, medium-cut leg, flattering neckline, accessible price. The thick fabric tie in the back is carrying the suit, doing most of the load bearing without much visual credit, and I suspect the person who can wear this is a serious workhorse who leads from behind. I have been this woman, but I don’t think I am anymore.

I couldn’t find a link to the non-maternity version of this swimsuit, and maybe that’s actually the best description of it: accommodating, flexible, duty-bound, and then vanishes once it’s served its purpose. This one-piece is for everyone; this one-piece is for no one.  

This one-piece is technically a monokini, which just means it reveals more skin than a regular one-piece. On me, it reveals even more than intended because if I dare to raise my arms, my boob fully pops out for a smoke. The woman who wears this suit (and frankly, the impressive woman who recommended it to me) is so self-assured that she can intimidate the one-piece into staying put. This is a power suit and I do not yet possess the power required.

 

“Resurrected from the archives” and from my adolescence, this suit is the embodiment of the Gone Girl “cool girl” monologue. The person who wears this one-piece eats burgers and burps, loves football and wakes up like this. But as the monologue goes, the cool girl is a fiction and so are the effortless lines of this suit. The extreme high-cut leg would require an extra-long waxing session where they tell me my hair is “so strong” and I’m a “great candidate for electrolysis.” No thank you.

Made by a UK company and named after a Greek island, this suit is for people who “go on holiday.” It is well-crafted, smoothly architected, and comes in lots of tasteful colorways. I can imagine any Reese Witherspoon character wearing it proudly, especially the version with hot pink lining. But when I put on this one-piece, it feels like a stiff dress I’ve bought for a job interview and plan to return immediately after. And anyway, since I have a 5-year-old, I go on trips not vacations.

They put the whole thesis of the design right there in the name: this one-piece is living its best life. It boasts a subtle and surprisingly flattering cut-out under the boob shelf (a “peek,” get it?), and two thick layers—not just one—of what the company calls “Smoothing Dream Fabric.” The effect is indeed quite smoothing, and if that wasn’t enough, the material comes from Italy. It’s the highest price point in the bunch, but I feel fantastic wearing it. Is this one-piece swimsuit “me?” I’m not sure yet, but I think this year I’ll give it a try

 

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