Classic, Timeless and Always Chic: Elegant French Women Turn to This Swimwear Style Every Summer

Monica Ainley is a Who What Wear UK Editor in Residence and a Paris-based fashion and culture writer and broadcaster. She is the co-creator of the influential Fashion: No Filter podcast and the culture podcast Fanfare. Monica also authors Mon Review, a weekly dispatch on aesthetics, literature and contemporary rituals.

I spent years looking for the perfect bikini. And once, as a tween, I found it. Somehow, on a family holiday, I left the bottom half on Prince Edward Island, never to be seen again. I can still picture it: a tiny coral floral print, perfectly cut. To this day, I regret not going back for it; I curse my parents for forcing me to abandon the lost bottom somewhere in those red sands at sunset. The itsy-bitsy teenie-weenies of my twenties still occupy a sentimental corner of my underwear drawer; a tangled nest of strings, bright colours and tiny triangles. They quietly keep each other company now, because these days, I’m a one-piece evangelist.

Why? For starters, it’s simply less faff. You buy one size; the one that fits you. None of the endless mix-and-match sizing to accommodate your uniquely specific chest situation, which rarely bears any relation to your hips. No acrobatic strap adjustments. No underwires. No deciphering a web of criss-cross ties whilst your friends are already in the water. When I arrive at a lake, pool or beach, I’m usually desperate to dive straight in, so the last thing I want is to spend precious minutes negotiating my swimwear. The one-piece, by comparison, is blissfully uncomplicated.

It also stays put. There are few things less glamorous than emerging from a wave only to discover you’ve become the afternoon’s entertainment. A good one-piece allows you to swim properly; to dive under waves, race a friend to the buoy, launch yourself off a dock or paddle blissfully for hours, without once worrying that half of your swimwear is about to float off on its own. Which is fitting, really, for swimming is one of life’s greatest pleasures precisely because it exists between leisure and sport. It is at once deliciously languid and quietly athletic: equal parts relief, freedom and movement. A one-piece honours both sides of that equation. It lets you show off your style if you wish, but it also, crucially, lets you actually swim.

I‘ve always associated the one-piece with a certain athletic glamour. I still think about Patrick Demarchelier’s A Swimmer’s Body editorial for Harper’s Bazaar in the late ’90s, styled by Tonne Goodman, where the swimsuit felt less like beachwear than a uniform for an impossibly elegant athletic life. Here, sport met seduction in the most desirable way possible. Perhaps that’s why it also makes me think of my grandmother, queen of no-nonsense elegance. She appreciated a garment that was both practical and impossibly chic. I never saw her bathe in the lake in anything other than a simple black one-piece, cut just so to her figure, as she lowered herself in on the ladder before splashing backwards and declaring, “Isn’t it delicious!”

Plus, somehow—and I cannot explain this scientifically—I also think the one-piece suits my very short hair far better, particularly once it’s wet and slicked back after a swim. Another reason I’ve become such an evangelist is that it solves the perennial beach-day wardrobe dilemma. A one-piece isn’t just swimwear; it’s half an outfit already. Where a bikini often calls for a proper cover-up before lunch or cocktails (unless you’re in Rio de Janeiro, where I was delighted to discover women happily stroll around in bikini tops all day—and quite right too), a one-piece slips effortlessly into the rest of your wardrobe. I simply throw on a silky sarong, a pair of fisherman sandals, relaxed black trousers or white cotton shorts and I’m done. No outfit change required.

That’s because the best one-pieces don’t really behave like swimwear at all, but rather an excellent bodysuit. A minimalist black style disappears under linen trousers as elegantly as any tank top. A sporty racerback looks entirely at home with Bermuda shorts, trainers and socks on a day spent chasing children. A plunging halterneck becomes eveningwear with a silk skirt and gold jewellery. The swimsuit doesn’t dictate the mood; it simply adapts to it. Perhaps that’s why I think of a really good one-piece as an investment rather than a holiday purchase. It’s a swimsuit, yes, but it’s also a top, one that happens to survive salt water. Granted, gynaecologists would probably advise against spending an entire day in a wet swimsuit, and that’s why I pack two.

I counted recently and realised I own more than 30 one-pieces. Some are minimalist and architectural, others channel surfer-girl nostalgia in bold colours and a few feature plunging necklines worthy of a Slim Aarons poolside photograph. I love every one of them, and after every swim I dutifully rinse them in fresh water and lay them flat to dry, hoping to extend their lives for another season. Fortunately, many of my favourite swimwear labels reissue their signature one-pieces year after year. The classics, it seems, endure.

My favourites include Matteau, Lido, Lido X Soeur, Banana Moon, Talia Collins and, of course, Eres. And whilst I’ve accepted that I’ll never recover that long-lost floral bikini from Prince Edward Island, I’ve stopped searching for the perfect swimsuit. I found it—it just turned out to only have one piece.

Shop the Best One-Piece Swimsuits