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Personal Style Swimwear

The Cutest One-Piece Swimsuits and Swimdresses That Will Rule the Beach

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Jeni Doherty, our swimwear buyer

While bikinis and tankinis have reigned for the last decade, the one-piece has suddenly made a major comeback. “Everyone’s wearing them now, including celebrities who definitely don’t have to cover up their gym bodies,” says our in-house swim expert Jeni Doherty. “They’re for everyone. Swimwear designers are offering really cute one piece swimsuits in every coverage level, for all body types. It’s also an ageless look.”

Swimdresses have the added advantage of upper thigh and tush coverage. “If you do a lot of bending down at the beach, these offer a measure of reassurance that you’re not flashing anyone—always a good idea,” Jeni says.

Another benefit over bikinis: Designers can do some serious engineering with more fabric to play with. Many one-pieces and swimdresses have built-in bras and shapewear capabilities. “It’s surprising to be able to get this level of support out of a bathing suit,” Jeni says.

Add to the love list a little extra sun protection, and we’re all in. Jeni has handpicked some of the best one piece swimsuits and swimdresses right here:

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Health & Wellness Inner Beauty Power Figures

Becky Burt, Founder of Pink Pineapple Surf School

It’s only fitting that we have a July 4th tête-à-tête with someone in possession of a fierce independent streak, an indomitable spirit and an iron will.

That would be Becky Burt.

At 30, she’s created a surf school for girls, run exclusively by women, on the East coast where surfer girls are something of a rarity—and she did it after suffering a debilitating injury that threatened not only the new venture but life as she knew it.

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Personal Style Swimwear

Prints Charming: Trendy Looks in Printed Swimwear

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Jeni Doherty, our swimwear buyer

Swimsuits follow their own hierarchy of needs. First and most critically, you’ve got to find the right brands for you, and the right size. When you’ve arrived at the ideal swimsuit fit and support for your figure, and you’re in a body positive mindset, that’s the time to have fun with your swimsuit wardrobe. Printed swimwear is the easiest way to do just that.

“Summer is the season for colorful, fun prints you might not go for at other times of the year—you can get a little wild with your bathing suits or swimsuit coverups because we’re not talking a whole lot of real estate here,” says Jeni Doherty, our swimwear buyer. “The other thing I love about prints is that they aren’t specific to age or body type; they’re for everyone. Which ones you choose is a matter of personal taste.” Anyone can pull off a uniform print on one-piece swimwear (just keep the scale of the design in proportion to your proportions—a small overall print if you’re petite, for example), or something really splashy on a little bikini. Jeni loves graphic prints for their overall camouflaging, not to mention visual interest.

Jeni narrowed down our vast pool of swimwear to four of her favorite prints of the season. Conveniently, these right-now looks are also sure to be in year after year. From conservative swimsuits with understated appeal to those that are brazenly over-the-top, there’s a way to find yourself among these looks, because there’s always a way for you to show off your authentic self—even in a bikini.

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Health & Wellness Inner Beauty Swimwear

Get Sun-Ready: Summer Skin Care Tips and SPF Advice to Enhance Your Inner Glow

The sun is a powerful thing—it can boost your mood, yet it can wreak havoc on your skin and your health. Despite all we know about skin cancer, there’s still pressure to score and maintain that perfect summer glow. You know, the one that declares to the world that you’ve been away on some exotic family vacation, you’re rested and rejuvenated and somehow also younger and thinner. So we’ve put together a list of SPF and skin care tips and advice to get you through the summer wrinkle- and worry-free—because there’s nothing sexy about sun damage.

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Meet the Merchants Personal Style Swimwear

How to Dress for the Beach at Any Age

If age ain’t nothing but a number, why does it feel like bathing suit shopping gets harder the older we get? Here’s the secret to life and how to dress for the beach: Nothing is possible without a little (or, in some cases, a lot of) support.

The very same suits—one-piece swimwear or more modest swimsuits, even a bikini or swim dress—can work on any body, at any age. The key is in the fit. If it feels good to put on, you feel good wearing it. Right? Right. So flex that wisdom and focus on the important stuff. When dressing for the beach, work with what you have, because both a soft midsection and absolutely fabulous abs all have a place on this summer’s bathing suit best-dressed list. With the help of a few friends, we produced the proof.

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Inner Beauty Personal Style Power Figures

Advice and Inspiration from a Successful Female CEO, Sara Sugarman Brenner

In this month’s edition of Power Figures, our exclusive interviews with some exceptionally self-actualized ladies, we’re visiting with Sara Sugarman Brenner. At 29, she conjured up Lulu & Georgia, her own cool-and-contemporary-meets-rationally-priced home décor company. Though young, make no mistake: She’s already learned a few thousand things about striking out on one’s own, delegating like a #boss, balancing without breaking, and redefining what it means to be a successful female CEO this century—oh, and she does it all in 5″ heels.

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Personal Style Swimwear

Beach Outfits, Pool Party Outfits and More: How to Rock Cute Swimsuit Outfits from Morning to Evening

Here’s a summer remix hotter than Rihanna and Drake: swimsuit outfits! Hit refresh on your warm weather wardrobe by making your swimwear work a double shift. With the right styling swaps, your favorite bikini tops, hipster bikini briefs, pin-up swimwear and even cover-ups can easily make the transition from resort to real life, increasing your wardrobe options and giving you way more bang for the buck. So go ahead and work it—we’ve got all the tips and tricks you need to try this easy, unexpected summer update on your pool party or beach outfits.

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Behind the Seams Meet the Merchants Personal Style Pop Culture

Festival Fashion: This is the Dawning of the Age of Festival Bralettes and Festival Lingerie

Summer is synonymous with concerts, which lift the spirit like little else. Hot on the heels of Coachella last month, we’re looking ahead to Governors Ball (June 3-5 in NYC), Bonnaroo (June 9-12 in Manchester, TN), Firefly (June 16-19 in Dover, DE), Newport Folk Festival (July 22-24 in Newport, RI), Lollapalooza (July 28-31 in Chicago) and Outside Lands (August 5-7 in San Francisco), among others.

Thanks to all these shows, festival lingerie is a thing that’s happening. Hand in hand with the bohemian-influenced clothes, the underpinnings are unlined, lacy and diaphanous, with a vintage quality. They’re unstructured and easy to wear (particularly for smaller busts, but there’s a way for all sizes to get in on the festival bralette trend, too). Read on for our staffers’ picks of the best bands and the best bralettes.

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Bra Fit Experts Inner Beauty Swimwear

How to Buy a Swimsuit That Fits: Online Swimwear Shopping Made Easy

Summer is a double-edged sword. Sure, we love it above all other seasons—the relaxed pace, the dose of vitamin D, the restorative time off. But like it or not, with its return each year comes the dreaded swimsuit try-on-athon. No sea of self-tanner can satisfactorily start to address spring’s pallor; no Tylenol can tame that season-opener of a bikini wax; no liquid courage can help us sail through what we know we’re about to endure: somehow locating those elusive three feet of fabric powerful enough to make us feel like Gigi Hadid at the Jersey shore.

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Behind the Seams Bra Fit Experts

Q&A with Elizabeth DeMott, Lead Bra Fit Expert

Elizabeth DeMott, director of bare necessities customer service, is the capital-B-Bra Fit Expert around here. Her job is to zero in on your pain points—bra-fittings to backorders—and smooth them over like a good natured, blazing hot iron.

You know it’s got to take a special kind of person to traffic in negatives and transform them into positives every single day. That’s got to tell you something about the stuff she’s made of. Elizabeth uses it to your advantage—how great is that? Now let’s talk shop….

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Personal Style Pop Culture Power Figures

The Sparkly Life’s Alyssa Hertzig on Beauty and Lifestyle Blogging

Welcome back to Power Figures, our series profiling ladies at the top of their game who are kindly enlightening us as they ascend. This month, we had too much fun chatting with Alyssa Hertzig, a beauty editor at some of the world’s top magazines who recently had the vision and courage to leave the world of glossies for a turn as a full-time lifestyle blogger and freelance writer.

The Sparkly Life follows her passions both professional (your new source for beauty reccos from someone who knows a BB cream from a CC cream) and personal (scientifically proven fact: no one throws a Pinterest-worthy party like Alyssa), candid (fair warning, grab a tissue before reading “The 3 AM Struggle is Real”) and chic as all get-out. She’s equal parts aspirational and attainable: a “cool” mom, a thinker of deep thoughts yet a self-proclaimed fluff junkie. She optimistically makes the daily juggle look damn good, one bouncy hair blowout at a time, and for that, we salute her.

(Have a suggestion for Power Figures? Email [email protected] to nominate someone.) Without further ado, meet Alyssa…

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Meet the Merchants Personal Style Swimwear

Guide to the Best Tankinis:
Everything You Need to Know

We like to think of tankinis as the MVP of swim season, or the most popular kid in class: Everyone loves these crowd-pleasing two-pieces. They’re the rare style that works darn near effortlessly for every age, every figure, every activity level, every style preference and every budget.

“Tankinis are a smart, stylish alternative to your traditional extremes: a bikini or a one-piece,” says our own swimwear aficionado Jeni Doherty. “They’re modest without being overly so, they’re really easy to wear and they’re practically customizable. Tankinis come in endless colors, prints and sizes, too.”

They’re especially great for those of us who:

  • aren’t quite the same size on top and bottom
  • prefer mixing and matching
  • want to affordably extend a swimwear wardrobe
  • spend equal amounts of time in and out of the water
  • like to be able to cover up a little in the sun (or show some skin for short lengths of time)
  • need to accommodate a longer torso

We rounded up our best tankinis to make swimsuit shopping as easy and foolproof as possible so you can get on with the important business of actually enjoying your getaway.

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Everything You Need to Know”