I want it, I want it, I want it!

I don’t remember which site I was at when I came across this photo, but something about it grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.   I just saw it and felt an immediate emotional connection.  My pulse quickened,  my fingertips shook ever so slightly on the keyboard as I pressed the ’save as’ key, and I knew that this was the suit that I’d been waiting for all my life.

The really weird thing is, if what I’ve admitted isn’t weird enough, I don’t know if I’ll ever have to wear it necessarily,  I just need to own it.  I just want to have it in my dresser drawer, the one allotted to resort wear and yoga tops, so that I can imagine myself in it by a pool in Palm Springs on a chaise longue sipping a Tom Collins with 3 ice cubes.  Oh yeah, and it’s the 1940’s.

This is a suit that looks great on a woman with real womanly curves, big boobs or not.  There’s a lot of that Bridget Jones granny pantie sexiness happening here, too.  I think I love it so much because it kinda reminds me of a two piece I had when I was 3 or 4 that had gathers at the sides and was made of real cotton and had substance, not like the thin stretchy, plasticy fabrics found today that reveal every ripple, dimple, cleave and follicle.   This is a suit you could play beach volleyball in and look sensational and sporty.

I even love the pattern!  I’m a sucker for anything floral and retro and this print just makes me happy.

Remember Cathy, that comic strip singleton who spent so many of her summers trying on bathing suits in a vain attempt to find the perfect one?   It seems silly but I certainly could relate to that character, though on more than one occasion I wanted to somehow tell her that if she just  stood up straight, brought her knees together demurely and pulled in her tummy a little she’d look fantastic.   If  Cathy had just forced a big smile on her cartoon face and walked out of that change room with confidence I’m sure she’d have silenced her inner critic forever.

I recently completed a major purge of all things wrong with my wardrobe.  I realized that no matter how good something looks in the store or on someone else, if it doesn’t make me feel happy when I pull it on, I won’t continue paying any part of my mortgage to have it parked it in my closet.  It’s outta there!  Don’t you find that when you’ve found something that turns your heartstrings, for whatever reason, those are the pieces that your girlfriends constantly say you look great in?

I think this is the suit that could get me out of my blowsy skirts and tees this summer.   Or into a co-ed hot tub.  This suit doesn’t need a tan to make it work and when I look at it I don’t hear that voice screaming in my head saying “you’ll have to lose 15 lbs and take up kickboxing again before that’ll look any good on ya!”.

I may blow up this photo and stick it on my Vision Board because of what it represents to me.  Beautiful lines, sexy confidence, freedom of expression, structure and femininity.   Crazy, I know.  It’s just a few yards of fabric but I see more than that.  I see the designer behind the creation (and I can make up a whole bio on him or her.  Just give me another hour!)   I see the person I could be wearing that suit.

Right now I’m a person in gray sweats who has a daughter that needs a ride to school.