Saw It On Social: The Battle of the Spendy Swimsuits

Sloane loves the pool. She jumps from the deck into the water with a crash, never considering her own safety, only to emerge on the surface, shouting “Again!” The pool is my daughter’s happy place. But no place where I need to wear a swimsuit in public is a happy one for me.

The moment the weather warmed, as if on cue, my social feeds were filled with advertisements selling pricey swimsuits that “shape,” “mold,” and “flatter.”  It was like marketing departments everywhere could feel my body image issues simmering in the summer sun.  Yet, all of the advertised suits were modeled by women who could grace centerfolds; how was I to assess how these suits would look on a 42-year-old Mom with a desk job, a toddler, and perimenopause?

There was only one solution: to order them.  All of them.  Nearly $800 worth of swimwear was tested and tried on during this endeavor.  Buckle up, ladies, because it’s going to be a bumpy ride on the way to a great swimsuit.  

First on the list, Stylest.  Harper’s Bazaar billed the Stylest’s swimsuits as “swimwear that doubles as shapewear.”  Stylest claims to boost confidence with targeted sculpting.  Their swimwear “system” also includes sarongs, rash guards and dresses to give you a complete swim “outfit.”  They even sell a swim-bra for women who need full support.

To give the line a try, I decided on their bestselling square neck swimsuit, the one with the 1990s Claudia Schiffer vibes. And after consulting the size guide, ordered the large to accommodate my 41″ hips.  

When the suit arrived, I made a mistake.  I washed it without trying it on.  I don’t know how to explain this lapse in judgment except to say that I bought into the hype.  I was so sure that a $198 swimsuit was going to solve my problems, that I didn’t make sure that I liked the suit before giving it a spin cycle seal of approval.  

I came to regret this decision when I realized that this Stylest swimsuit is the single worst swimsuit that I have ever purchased.  And thanks to that trip through the laundry, I now cannot return it.

From the moment I put the Stylest swimsuit on, I wanted to shrivel up and die.  Not that I would have been able to shrivel, because the suit squeezed every part of my anatomy like a tourniquet.  My breasts were pancakes.  My abdomen felt like it might explode.  I had zero shape, no curves, and was completely unable to breathe without pain.  I suddenly understood how the small deer feels when it meets the boa constrictor.

Confused by how tight the suit was, I looked at the size guide again.  Had I made a mistake?  No, this suit was “my size.”  Unbelievably, the suit was supposed to fit like a pair of grandma’s compression socks.

I peeled myself out of the suit and sat on the floor of my bathroom utterly demoralized.  A woman who once wore tiny bikinis at beauty pageants now couldn’t fit into a size large, sculpting Mom suit.  But, never fear, my sadness soon turned to anger.  

Looking at the hot pink suit balled up on my bathroom floor, I felt suddenly preyed upon, lured into spending a billable-hour’s wage on a swimsuit that promised to build me up, only to break my spirit.  No woman wants to wear Spanx — you know the ones from 2002 with the “good” Lycra — to the beach.  No woman wants to be reminded with every step that her body is so unacceptable to a society that prizes thinness that it needs to be molded like clay in a suit that could snap her spine if it fit any tighter.  Somehow Stylest had made a suit for women with body image issues that just gives them more body image issues. No thank you.

The next contender was Une Piece.  This Australian brand promised that I would find a flattering swimsuit in a “classic,” “timeless” style.  And while their website makes no mention of shaping or slimming, their influencer-created social media videos all do.  Every sponsored post fed to me by the brand featured buxom, size 8-10 women talking about how their curves have never looked better, how everything was lifted and “snatched.”  

Contrasting the brand website’s copy with the produced social media content, you immediately notice the disconnect.  One plays to the women-first, “all the girls” crowd with body acceptance speak and talk of sustainability.  The other gets down to the brass tacks: your tits will hang below your knees if you don’t buy this suit.

Regardless, when their Classic Square Neck suit arrived it looked more promising than the Stylest suit on first glance.  The paneling in the bodice felt stretchier in the waist and it clearly had built in bust support.  Encouraged by outward appearances, I steeled myself and tried on the suit.  

My measurements put me in a size 10.  Unlike the Stylest debacle, the size guide for Une Piece was correct.  This suit actually fit like it was the correct size.  It didn’t pinch or hurt, but it felt purposefully tight.  My bust was lifted as promised, but the rest of me looked, well, wider.  Much wider.  The retro styling of the leg opening, which hits at the low hip, had visually stretched my lower half like a fun house mirror.  The mid-section shaping gave my torso a pencil shape with no curve.  My bust looked great, but the rest of me didn’t get the same treatment.

Unlike the Stylest suit where I felt conned, this Une Piece style felt like it just wasn’t the right suit for me.  The suit felt a bit matronly, like a better version of the Miraclesuits all the Moms wore to the pool in the 1990s.  The Une Piece was a good attempt, but, for me, a miss.

Lastly, the final suit I ordered came from TA3.  This suit haunted my social feeds like Jacob Marley for an entire year before I gave in.  Popular on TikTok this suit is cinched like a corset to create a waistline even a Kardashian would love.  No doubt, you’ve seen the videos.  Or perhaps, you caught the founder’s appearance on Shark Tank.

While selecting a size, I was a taken aback that the TA3 size guide only asks how long your torso is and what your waist measurement is.  No bust or hip size included, just waist.  I was only willing to go with this insanity for the sake of research.  I was a M waist, and an XL torso.  So I placed my order for their classic Plungey suit.

Putting on the suit, I realized that there was a full compression panel in the torso.  Also, the leg opening sat lower on the hip than I would have preferred, but the bust was supportive and (unsurprisingly for a suit called the Plungey) a bit revealing.  If I had tried on this suit in a department store, I would have cast it aside immediately, but I wanted to try the trademark cinch.  Apparently, I’m a sucker for a gimmick.

Pulling those straps, I suddenly felt like a wealthy woman in the Gilded Age.  One moment, I was a slightly square-shaped Mom, and the next minute, I was an hourglass-figured maven.  There was just one problem.  I couldn’t move and breathe at the same time.  I reached down to pick up a hairbrush and almost blacked out, and unlike corseted forebears, there was no fainting couch to catch me.  

So I loosened the corset to give my oxygen levels a boost.  And while that helped, it became abundantly clear that this was a suit made for sipping umbrella drinks in a deck chair, not chasing a toddler. The TA3 suit had delivered what it promised, a defined waist, but at a cost: the ability to freely convert oxygen into carbon dioxide.  

If you’re headed on a girls trip or a romantic getaway, this might be the suit for you provided you only tighten it 80% of the way.  But if you’re headed to the pool with a bag full of dive toys and a styrofoam noodle under your arm, this suit will restrict many of your movements, including that important one where your chest rises and falls in order to keep you alive.

This is the suit I actually bought and kept.  Meet Andie, the swimsuit brand that promises to “keep everything where it should be and feel great.”

Instagram had been feeding me this Malibu suit, with the snap front and high neck for years.  I think the first time I saw it was right before I got pregnant in late 2021.  I feel a bit foolish for waiting so long to buy it.

The size guide placed me at the very top of the Medium range (like on the numbers, very top), and everything I read said the suit ran TTS-maybe a little large, so I ordered the Medium and not the Large.  I wondered for all three days it took to ship whether I would regret this decision.

Putting it on, the suit fit by this much.  Literally, thismuch.  But even snug, the suit wasn’t too tight.  It didn’t hurt or pinch or squeeze or compress.  It just smoothed ever so slightly.

The only downside of ordering the Medium was that I could only snap the bottom two snaps on the suit, but it turned out to be fine.  Because, amazingly, the suit looked good with the neck more open.  My breasts were out on display and I felt neither trashy nor self conscious.  I added nipple covers for comfort, and was, honestly, happy with my appearance.  A Christmas in July miracle.

I didn’t feel like the suit was trying too hard.  I didn’t feel like I was trying to fake being thinner by being squeezed.  I didn’t feel like the swimsuit triggered a running internal commentary about how my body looked.  I just felt like me, wearing a swimsuit, looking nice.

I loved this Andie suit so much in the hot coral (which is sadly sold out since last week), that I bought it in white as well.  I also bought their Tahiti one-piece, which is more of a traditional style, but I wanted a simple, black suit.

Bottom Line. Buy the Andie suit.  I’m almost never the influencer screaming about how something is a must have, but this is one of those times.

At the pool, the first time I wore the Malibu, I had four different women ask me: “Is that the Andie suit?”  Clearly, they had also seen it online but not IRL, and upon seeing it in the wild, on the body of a “real woman,” had realized that the social media advertising might not be a lie.  One of the women actually came over to ask about sizing because she was literally ordering the suit from her phone while her kids ate chicken tenders on a pool lounger.  If that’s not an advertisement for usability in real life, I don’t know what is.

Seriously, of all the suits that Instagram tried to sell me (and it tried to sell me every single suit ever made this summer) this is the only one that I would try to sell you.  This Andie swimsuit feels like it was made for a woman who wants a little help to look her best, but who still wants to look and feel like herself.  

Truthfully, there was a brief moment when I saw myself in the mirror where I got misty eyed, because, for the first time in 10 years, I put on a swimsuit and didn’t have a single negative thought about my body.  It was such a relief. 

{this post contains affiliate links only for the Andie suits; I don’t make money off products that I wouldn’t actually buy and keep for myself}