Our characteristic Indian prudery/modesty and the desire to hide chubby posteriors and cellulite has given birth to some strange sartorial aberrations – these are alleged to be swimsuits though they would not be recognised as such anywhere else in the world. There are some truly egregious swimsuit styles that have come into being in recent times; styles that should never have seen the light of day; much less be permitted to exit the changing room and enter the pool. Here are swimsuit styles you should not to be caught dead in and why:
The salwar kameez swim suit
Ladies this above objects are not a swimsuit. Those two hediousities on the left and right are salwar kameez suits masquerading as swimsuits. The object in the middle was obviously designed to go deep sea diving with and is not meant for hot Indian summers and a few feet of tepid chlorinated water.
The Indian version of a two piece
This particular design was made as a repellant. Supposedly meant to repel tanning from the fierce rays of the sun, be assured, these revolting creations would effortlessly repel an entire gender. As for the prints from left to right: (ugly) cushion cover, (repulsive) clown and (dreadful) wallpaper respectively.
The nightsuit-swimsuit
eBay assures us that vast quantities of these items are selling. Apparently the seller has cleverly hoodwinked buyers into purchasing as a swimsuit what appears to be night wear or lounge wear, simply by placing the models next to artificial water bodies and making them sport swim caps and goggles atop their heads.
The swim dress
Are you at all serious about learning how not to drown woman? Well how on earth do you think you will learn to swim a stroke with all that extraneous material flapping around your legs! Get rid of the thing at once! What! You paid two grand for that floating tent? Well switch to tennis, please. Those built in shorts will protect your modesty when the skirt rides up as you execute that difficult backhand.
The long sleeved swim suit
Yes, yes it’s very nice and it prevents tanning and all that. But seriously, this swimsuit makes it seem as though the wearer had a Raju-in-3-Idiots moment and forgot to put on their pants/skirt before leaving home.
So what brought on that rant against swimwear you wonder? Well this was brought on by the difficulty of finding a single wearable swimsuit that one has been facing in recent times, anything that looks like a swimsuit; devoid of sleeves, pants, frills, high necks, zips, buckles and so on. Sigh! It is enough to make one throw up one’s hands in abject surrender and switch to an altogether different sport.
Author – Reena Daruwalla
