Fashion
Are Bikini Bottoms Getting Bigger Again?
We took a dive into the growing trend.
On her most recent beach vacation, Bustle Chief Content Officer Emma Rosenblum — who’s been known to summer on Fire Island — spotted several fuller-coverage bikini bottoms. NYLON Managing Editor Chelsea Peng, meanwhile, reports seeing a noticeable dearth of derriere exposure both in Mykonos (surprising!) and on Sant Sebastià. Was there a mass departure from G-strings and thongs afoot?
When we did some more digging into Rosenblum’s hypothesis on the return of more chastely cut beachwear, it turns out that the It Girls are already dressing right in step with our anecdotal findings. Katy Perry, for example, just hit the water in Saint-Tropez in a Frankies Bikini two-piece with a fuller bottom, while Kylie Jenner dropped a swim edit via her label KHY featuring boy shorts and even swim skirts (as did Maryam Nassir Zadeh for her J.Crew collab, which you’ll no doubt spot at every pool party until September). Emma Chamberlain also wore trunks over a rashguard in a campaign for her coffee brand. In fashion, three’s a trend, so we’re going to call it: There does seem to be a pendulum swing from itty-bitty, teeny-weeny, dental floss to more modest briefs this season.
But why? The trickle-down effect of trends like “trad wife,” the milkmaid dress, and more conservative fashion might have some connection to the way women want to dress right now, even for the beach. Further upstream, you also have several fashion brands that showed underwear as outerwear on the Spring/Summer 2024 runways, such as Ferragamo, Chloé, and Dior; most notably, at Miu Miu, Miuccia Prada mixed and matched blazers and polos with full-coverage bikini bottoms in primary colors. Swimwear designers like Monday Swimwear, Staud, and Tropic of C may have then picked up these cues and brought them to life for the shopper who wants to paddleboard, tan, and walk the Coney Island boardwalk without being concerned about a centimeter-wide gusset riding up.
So yes, you could very well say that the full-coverage bikini bottom is back. It may give you less of a bum tan, but it will also keep you comfortable while you read and laze (or doom-scroll) under an umbrella all summer long. Shop our picks — from high-waisted, vintage-inspired briefs to cheeky boyshorts — below.
