What Swimsuits Are the Cool Moms Wearing Right Now?
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As I’ve talked to tasteful people — many of whom are tastefulmoms—all summer about theirswimsuits, I’ve heard a few preferences again and again: a swimsuit that “has the reassurance of a hug” (even when chasing after a toddler), doesn’t “demand a full-body wax,” and is both “comfortable and forgiving.” To hear more about what cool, in-the-know moms are wearing to the pool (and beyond), I polled over a dozen about the swimsuits they’ve been relying on this summer, from one that’s been “buried alive” in sand in Amagansett to another that was covered in drool after a nap. And for good measure, I included other mom-recommended swimsuits we’ve written about too — including during theStrategist Swimsuit Project.
Some mom-recommended swimsuits
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It has "almost a Spanx effect, but without actually feeling like shapewear.”
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“Throw a big open button-down over it, toss on a baseball cap, and call it a summer.”
One-Pieces
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J.Crew Sydney Scrunchie One-Piece
Morrigan McCarthy, who writes the newsletterHome Run, has been wearing the Sydney nearly every day this summer (“in the pool, in the lake, in the ocean”) as her 5-year-old is learning to swim. “It’s really important to me that my daughter (and her friends) grow up seeing adult women comfortable in bathing suits: hoisting kids through the water, demonstrating dives, wrestling ourselves onto floats, doing handstands on the beach … without constantly worrying about how we look,” McCarthy says. “It simply fits well and doesn’t make me feel like my body is something that needs to be hidden or fixed in some way.” You can get a more customized fit by adjusting the straps in the back. “It’s basically a slightly updated version of what my mom and aunts wore on the beach in the ’90s — exactly the look I aspire to,” says McCarthy. “Throw a big open button-down over it, toss on a baseball cap, and call it a summer.”
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“It stays exactly where it’s supposed to on a day with kids,” saysMerie Subryan, an interior stylist and design consultant. “If you size down, it has a surprisingly good amount of hold — almost a Spanx effect, but without actually feeling like shapewear.” That’s exactly what she wants, as “I burn absurdly easily these days, so my natural habitat is under a cabana. I’ll swim, wander, get sandy, then retreat to the shade.”
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“I’ve had this version of the Speedo for over ten years; it’s perfect,” says photographerCynthia Edorh. No doubt Speedo’s chlorine-resistant Endurance fabric has something to do with the longevity. Edorh swims laps in it three times a week, as it’s “designed for unrestricted shoulder movement.”
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Actress Megan Ferguson has never felt as “contained by a single piece of Lycra” as she does inLeft on Friday’sSunday Suit. It challenges her basic understanding of physics. Not only is it “doing the work of a surgical breast-lift” (it’s available in either an A–D or a D–G cup size), you get the right amount of coverage “without demanding a full-body wax.” Just be sure to size up so that “all that could be lifted” could be lifted. It’s as “if High & Tight were a one-piece.”
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AuthorSarah Blakley-Cartwright’s minimum requirement for a swimsuit is that “it should stay where you left it.” Other swimsuits she’s tried necessitate “their wearer to lie prone on a chaise longue, perfectly still, barely risking to turn the page of a paperback. Or else to spend an entire afternoon tugging the suit back into position.” That’s not the case with Andie’s Malibu. It “accepts that its wearer might not just turn a page but lift a 40-pound child, climb ladders at the water park and hurtle down the 70-foot free-fall slide, sprint after that same child who’s now made a break for open water — or just attempt a cartwheel in the sand.” No more worrying about pulling and tugging. “It feels like the freedom of wearing nothing, but with the reassurance of a hug, everything held in place,” Blakley-Cartwright writes.
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Hannah Selinger, author ofValley of the MomsandCellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly, can do just about any water sport (paddleboarding, snorkeling) in Andie’s Fiji. Selinger has traveled all over the world with her Fiji: France, the Dominican Republic, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, where she took a boat ride to aPirates of the Caribbeanfilming location in it.
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Andie The Amalfi One-Piece
Our senior writerLauren Rowore an Amalfi throughout her pregnancies and between having her sons, Augie and Solomon. It still offers a good amount of coverage to this day. “I don’t have to worry about anything moving or shifting,” Ro says.
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“I don’t like being around people in a swimsuit usually because I don’t like feeling inspected, and this takes the pressure off,” says designerBatsheva Hay. “It’s silly.” Her friendNoah Rinskystarted the brand Old Jewish Men, and she appreciated theLarry David referencein “Spite”(especially as someone who “loves a gag anything”). It may not be sexy, but “not sexy is good.” (Hay has last year’s version, while this year’s version might be slightly cheekier-fitting.) She could jump off a boat going from Sag Harbor to Shelter Island in it and could wear it at the cold plunge and steam room of the Lore Bathing Club.
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Fashion Brand Company’s Worst Bugs Swimsuit is the “antithesis of serious,” says photographerSunny Sanaz Shokrae, despite being printed with scientific taxonomy vocabulary:oxyporus rufus,neoscona crucifera, etc. “It puts me in a good mood almost instantly; it’s playful, it’s fantasy,” says Shokrae. Her son has the matchingT-shirt, and “when we wear them together, I feel so happy.” It’s “a hit for kids and adults alike.”
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Edorh did a mother-daughter campaign for Negative a few years ago and became “obsessed with their high-quality, incredibly soft fabrics.” She couldn’t help but order this swimsuit that’s made of a nylon that’s “ultrasoft, lightweight, and so comfortable.” And “it’s a good hybrid for both lounging and swimming.” (She recommends sizing up if you have a longer torso.)
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“I tend to resist the signifiers of ‘cool mom’ this or that,” saysKelsey Keith, the creative director of MillerKnoll. “So my definition is a swimsuit that doesn’t malfunction (who has the time), but also doesn’t flatten your entire sense of identity/self into a cardboard cutout of ‘mama.’” Keith likens this one-piece to a wet suit, and it’s been able to tube down the Russian River and jump into a glacier lake in the Sierras. Just as it remains in place, it’s “revealing enough so that it isn’t the least bit dowdy.”
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Jill Singer, the co-founder and editor ofSight Unseenwho writes the newsletterCounter Space, would rather dive into a pool than jump, “and I hate when a suit balloons with water when I go in headfirst.” But Matteau’s Balconette Maillot stays put; the balconette is cut just low “to be fun but still safe when playing or running or getting tumbled around in the ocean.” Every summer, she visits friends whose parents have a house in Vermont, and this summer, while a friend took her daughter to explore more of the falls, she sat on a rock doing a crossword in the sun in the swimsuit. “One time, at the public pool in Montauk when my kids were young, I just had this realization: ‘Oh, the lifeguard thinks I’m a middle-age mom,’ which of course I am,” says Singer. “But my goal with swimsuits is to at least seem hot for my age, which this suit does well.”
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Lido Trentasei
“I have three boys, and they really want me to be in the water with them,” says attorneyMarissa Meredyth. “Because we live near a huge lake and lots of little lakes, rivers, and watering holes, I generally reach for suits that are comfortable, dry fast, and stay put.” That means ones that can withstand hiking to the water, jumping off logs and rocks, and “practicing headstands on paddleboards.” (“For me, with my uterus size fluctuating and not liking the feeling of something cutting into my midsection — I usually want a one-piece.”) The swimsuit she’s wearing most often this summer is the Lido Trentasei. She watched a Little League postseason all-stars game in it (after spending time at a pool chasing her boys around), where there was “hide-and-seek and tag playing, too much candy at the concession stand, and I almost challenged the first-graders to a cartwheel competition.” It was a “long day in a suit.”
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“If I can play and climb with ease, walk without getting a major wedgie, and wash something easily, it’s ‘mom clothes.’ Otherwise, I don’t categorize clothes like that,” saysDaphne Javitch, health coach and founder ofDoing Well. “These suits are great for all of the above.” You can get away with wearing them “as a bodysuit top for non-swim activities.” Javitch thinks the Pistachio’s cut is “somehow modest and sexy,” while the Y-back on the Racerback is delicate.
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A Nu Swim wearer for years, Meredyth thinks “you sacrifice a little comfort and they fit a bit snugger; the fabric really holds you, though.” Her Noodle has “been through some things, but every time I forget about her and pull her out, I’m always pleasantly surprised at how good she is.”
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PublicistMadeleine Fawcetthas a few Eres swimsuits that are well over ten years old — and in “near-perfect condition.” This helps “alleviate any guilt I feel over the breathtaking price tag.” Fawcett has both the Cassiopee and Aquarelle “in more colors than I should admit.” (Both are made with Eres’peau douce— literally French for “soft skin” — fabrication.) She doesn’t have to think “about diving into the ocean or having kids inevitably hanging off of me and suddenly being topless” in the strapless Cassiopee. “My favorite memories aren’t glamorous, they’re me chasing four little kids around the beach, jumping in the ocean, not worrying about whether my swimsuit is going to fall down while also feeling totally likeme.”Michaella Solar-March, a chief marketing officer, feels “held in and well supported” in her Aquarelle. No wonder she’s been “hiking the Cinque Terre with a baby strapped to my back, surfing at Bondi Beach, while being ‘buried alive’ in sand in Amagansett, and diving competitions with my kids in the ocean in Maine, and jumping into freezing mountain springs in Scotland” in it. “I tried many less expensive suits but found that the back was too low, the cut of the rear was too high, or the neckline was too low, and I decided to invest in one really nice suit that I knew I’d love to wear, instead of a few that I didn’t feel like myself in,” she adds.
Two-Pieces
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“For me, a good mom suit should make you feel good (check), should be durable and not too precious (check), and should stay in place while children are climbing all over you in a slippery pool (check),” says Gena Kaufman, a social-media director. That’s why she has Old Navy’s Ribbed Scoop-Neck Top and High-Waisted Ribbed Bikini Bottoms in black, blue, and yellow. “I liked the fit enough that any time I found another color in my size during one of Old Navy’s many sales, I purchased it immediately,” says Kaufman. It covers her upjustenough, as “kids or not, I’ve simply never been a string-bikini person and never will be.” And miraculously, after wearing it to pools “of all sorts” (“fancy hotel, dingy motel, NYC public”) and a few trips to the Rockaways, “it’s survived public transportation, some questionably clean waters, endless requests to cover my children’s legs with mermaid tails made of sand, and most notably, a five-family synchronized mom-and-kid pool-jumping session.”
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J.Crew Hallie Bikini Bottom
“For some reason, after having two kids I’m into showing more skin,” saysWall Street Journalart editorAlexandra Citrin-Safadi. “Motherhood changes you.” While Citrin-Safadi likes a simple bikini, “as a 34DD, I prefer underwire, especially because I like to be in the water and run around.” She just returned from a family vacation in Cape Cod where she “lived in” J.Crew’s Ruched Underwire Bikini Top and Hallie Bikini Bottom. No matter sand, salt, dirt, or ice cream spills, “like most J.Crew suits, this thing is durable.” Citrin-Safadi adds, “I wore them every single day even though I brought two other suits.” The Ruched Underwire Bikini Top has “more of a balconette lift to it, which is flattering on a larger chest.” (She was looking forward to restocking on J.Crew’s1993 Underwire Bikini Topthat she had years ago this summer — “to myhorror, they appear to be phasing it out.”) “I actually don’t think about it at all when I’m wearing it, which is the gold standard of how to feel in a bikini,” she says.
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Subryan feels transported in this bikini that’s part ofMango’s collaboration with Eckhaus Latta— in no small part thanks to the print. It “has this biomorphic, almost primordial quality — somewhere between marine life, cellular forms, and something faintly extraterrestrial. It feels a little Björk to me: earthy, strange, and futuristic all at once. It’s the kind of pattern that feels pulled from nature, but not in an obvious tropical-print way.” To her, it’s “distracting in the best way; your eye goes straight to the print, so the whole thing feels more about the swimsuit than about scrutinizing your body.” She wears it when “there’s even a vague possibility of being seen somewhere other than waist-deep in water.” (Like a “toddler nap that ended with me covered in drool.”)
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“I think because I have a preteen now, I am less concerned about ‘mom’ swimwear (which is definitely a thing because you need to be able to chase small kids around on the beach) and am back to wearing proper, impractical, sexy bikinis,” says writerAnja Tyson. “Every day that I look at myself in a bikini, I am riding the line between being shocked at the near-imperceptible changes in my body and feeling like I look like a million bucks.” Tyson buys separates from Calomel. They’ve been to France, Italy, Spain, Long Island, Vermont, and Maine: “jumping off boats, picking up babies, arguing with my kid in direct July sunlight, surf lessons, volleyball.” (Even getting “ketchup and ice cream everywhere” once. “Because of me, not the kids.”)
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“If you have a kid, you know they’re constantly climbing all over you, so a string bikini is a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen. Some people might not care about that, but I guess I’m not that cool of a mom,” says Erin Allweiss, co-founder ofNo. 29. Not that she has to worry about that with the Ha-Ra Top, as the back closure is “basically childproof.” She has been wearing it with the High Cut Bottom “from the pool to the waves of Lake Annecy in the French Alps, where I’ve been trying to teach my kid to swim” this summer. InMorpho(for the Ha-Ra Top) andPaprika(High Cut Bottom), she can stand out “in a good way, but also a practical one: My kid can easily spot me in a crowd (not that I’m going far from him).”
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When brand consultantAli Moranmet a friend at a hotel pool last summer, she managed to forget her swimsuit, buying aHunza GJulia at the gift shop: “There was some definite sticker shock, but I justified it by telling myself the fabric would see me through getting pregnant, having a baby, and whatever shape my body decided to take along the way.” Moran remembers wearing it on her babymoon in Grenada and “feeling so good in my changing body and really excited about becoming a mom. It was such a happy, anticipatory time.” Her body changed a lot in the months since giving birth, “but the suit is still flattering.” She can nurse in the top, with her boobs getting “a nice little lift. They have been through a lot this year and frankly deserve the support.” (Plus “the O-ring detailing in the bust feels like a nod to 1970s Mediterranean resort glamour — exactly the kind of thing a Roger Moore–era Bond girl might wear.”) The high cut on the bottom gives her “the illusion of an extra four inches of leg” too.
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