Earlier this week, journalist and broadcaster Janice Street-Porter decided to weigh in on the topic of the bikini. In her view, wearing one after the age of 20 was simply a no-go, and added that she hasn't worn one for the best part of two decades now.
Street-Porter wrote that, as a garment, the bikini makes "all women over the age of 20 feel exposed, vulnerable and a little bit ridiculous", adding that women over that age needed to face the reality that they simply couldn't wear one.
In response, Nora Owen, who was filling in for Ivan on the Breakfast Show this week, has also decided to tackle the tough topic, and for the main, she's in agreement with Street-Porter, but not for the same reasons.
There are any number of of reasons why bikinis should be dumped from any girl’s bathing gear by age 21 or so, but being bad value for money is one of them. The amount of material in a bikini is half what it takes to make a t-shirt, but the smaller the bikini the more expensive it seems to be.
Bikinis must be the most unflattering garments available after a certain young age because so much of the body is on display. There is nowhere to hide the little bulges that begin to appear, even in fit people, and in particular around the tummy and buttocks areas.
Most of us tend to have one portion of our body that is not too bad to show off, such as a good bust, but the further down it goes, the body can go out of balance and one's hips widen out of proportion, or vice versa- not bad in the hip area but what are sometimes described as "two fried eggs" on top.
I confess I did don a bikini after I was 21-years-old, but when I see old photos of myself I wonder why I didn’t opt for the one-piece bathing suit much sooner. I was never a size 10 but I thought I had to be in fashion when all around me were bikini-clad.
I've noticed on holidays that some older women of certain nationalities seem to have no problem parading around on the beach in a bikini displaying birth scars, appendix and other operation scars, flabby tummies, drooping boobs, well-padded thighs and bottoms without the slightest hint of embarrassment. Fair play to them for that, BUT they are kidding themselves if they think they look good.
Even the beauty contests have opted for one-piece suits, although the girls in these contests are model thin and well-exercised.
I no longer believe any photo of a girl that looks amazing in a bikini beyond her teenage years, I just see Photoshop written all over it. In my view, women should take Tom Jones’s advice and release themselves from the tyranny of beach-ready body and bikini -wearing preparations (such as in credibly painful waxing) and liberate their bodies with the elegant tummy support and padded bra top of a one-piece bathing suit.
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