Criss Cross One Piece Bathing Suits

Criss Cross One Piece Bathing Suits

How Do You Put a Criss Cross On?

It is the most searched question about this style, which tells you how often it goes wrong. A crossed back has no obvious top and no obvious front while it is lying flat, and the straps are already twisted around each other by design. It is also the question the product photographs never answer, since every one of them shows the suit already on.

Find the leg openings first and lay the suit out with the crossed straps behind. Step into it from the floor rather than pulling it over your head — a crossed back has less give across the shoulders than a plain one, and going in from the top is where the tangle usually starts.

Pull it up to the waist, put one arm through its strap and settle that strap on the shoulder, then the other. The crossing point takes care of itself once the straps have gone on in order. Reach behind and run a finger down the X to check the two are flat against each other rather than stacked or rolled, since a rolled strap is what digs an hour later.

On the way off, reverse it exactly: straps off the shoulders one at a time, then down and step out. Peeling a wet suit upward over the head with the straps still crossed is how they end up stretched.

Crossed at the Front, Crossed at the Back

Two searches, two different garments, and sellers use the words interchangeably. Keeping them apart is worth the effort, because the two are chosen for entirely different reasons.

A criss cross front one piece bathing suit folds two panels over each other across the bust, in a surplice arrangement that meets at the side. It is a styling decision: the diagonal lines carry the eye across the body instead of down it, and the depth of the V is set by where the two panels cross. Read that in the front photograph, since an overlap looks shallower on camera than it wears. A deeper overlap also asks more of the join at the waist, which is the only thing stopping the two panels from sliding apart.

A criss cross back one piece bathing suit puts the crossing behind, between the shoulder blades, and there it is structural rather than decorative — crossed straps pull the load toward the center of the back and hold through overhead movement. How that carries a fuller bust is set out on one piece bathing suits for busty women.

Plenty of suits do both, and there the front is the design and the back is the engineering. Where only one of them matters to you, check which the listing is actually describing before ordering.

Criss Cross With a Halter or a High Neck

The back is settled by the crossing, so the front is still an open question — and that is where this style divides. Three pairings cover most of what is available.

A halter front. The straps come up and over the shoulders while the front hangs from the neck, the arrangement sold almost everywhere as a criss cross halter. Halter one piece swimsuits cover what that does to the neckline.

A high neck. A closed front above a crossed back is the standard sporting combination, and the one to look at for laps — see high neck one piece swimsuits and athletic one piece swimsuits.

An open back. Where the straps are the only thing back there, the crossing becomes the back view in its own right — open back one piece swimwear compares them, and the full shape is in one piece swimwear.