Cheeky One Piece Swimsuits

Cheeky One Piece Swimsuits

Where the Cut Actually Happens

There is no separate bottom to choose here, so the cheeky part of a cheeky one piece swimsuit is a line rather than a piece: the curve of the rear leg opening, and how high it climbs before it meets the side seam.

That curve has two variables. Where it leaves the crotch seam, and how steeply it rises from there. A line that starts low and rises sharply takes its fabric from the middle of the seat and leaves the outer edge alone. One that starts further out and rises gently narrows the panel evenly across its width. The first reads bolder at the same coverage. Neither is better than the other; they put the same amount of fabric in different places, and which one suits you is a question about your own proportions rather than about the cut.

The front view settles none of this, and from directly behind a steep curve and a gentle one look much alike until you find where each edge arrives at the side. It is the side-on shot that answers it, because the height of that meeting point is the whole of the difference between two suits that photograph identically from the front.

The higher that point sits, the longer the run of uninterrupted leg beside it, which is why the same cut turns up on athletic one piece swimsuits as readily as on decorative ones. The line is doing a proportional job in both places.

A Narrower Seat in the Water

Less fabric across the seat gives it less to do once you are swimming, and the difference announces itself on the way out rather than on the way in.

A wide rear panel fills while you swim and carries that water up the steps with you, where it drains for a moment and drops back against the body. A narrow one takes on a fraction as much and lets go of it almost at once. Over a morning of getting in and out, that is the small comfort people notice first. It also decides how cold the walk back to the chair feels, since a panel still holding water is the coldest thing you have on.

It dries sooner as well, at the one part of a suit that stays in contact with everything — a towel, a chair, the warm stone at the edge of the pool. A doubled panel at the seat can still be damp an hour after the rest of the suit has gone dry, and a single narrow band of it is ready long before lunch finishes.

The trade is that one edge is doing all of the holding, so the fit through the hip counts for more here than on a fuller cut. A suit a little loose there lets the edge travel as you walk; one cut close to the body keeps the line it was drawn with.

Cheeky With the Rest of the Suit

The back is narrow and everything above it remains entirely open, which is why this cut arrives attached to so many different suits. Three combinations account for most of the searching.

With a halter. A neck strap leaves the back bare from the shoulder blades down, so the eye travels the whole length of the body to the cut at the leg. Halter one piece swimsuits cover how the front is held up.

With openings. A cheeky monokini pairs the cut with a break at the waist or the ribcage, and the two details balance each other when one of them is kept small — cut out one piece swimsuits compare the placements.

A plain front. The quietest version of all, and the one that dresses up or down without effort. Start from flattering one piece swimsuits for the shape on its own, or from one piece swimwear for the full range.