Teeny Bikinis

Back at home men and women alike are pulling out layers and breathing sighs of relief, letting their guts and bikini lines fall out of thier top priorities. Here, however, summer has been getting a move on for the past month. Sleeves are getting shorter and toes are peeking out of shoes. In the parks, bellies are being bared in hopes of some kisses from the sun, and clothiers are displaying their idea of acceptable swimwear in their shop windows.

It is true that Argentine women tend to come in significantly smaller frames than my American sisters. And when they aren't super skinny, they're trying hard to drop those pounds, whether in the gym or leaning over that porcelain bowl. (Eating disorders are rampant here, and it's easy to see why.)

So I'm not sure if it's a matter of actual demand, or some nasty idea of incentive to get these girls to drop the pounds, but my oh my are their bikinis teeny weeny!


Now I'll admit to a number of overtly girly near-obsessions. Shoes, bags, the usual. But bikini collecting has become an unintentional plague on my supply of available drawer space for years now. With the exception of this past summer, I have bought at least one (if not three) new bikinis every season, despite generally favoring the same two when actually putting the things to use.

Naturally, heading to a country where Summer No. 2 was just around the corner, and where they are known for their blooming fashion designers, I thought this place would be a goldmine for my guilty shopping pleasure.

I was wrong.

Fingering the racks of string-tied bits in store after store, my insides lurched at the idea of donning any of the micro-specimens offered. The tops? Tiny. Even for me, and I'm not exactly busting out up top. But some were do-able, which gave me a certain amount of hope. Hope that would prove itself false once I moved onto the...

Bottoms. Dear lord, the bottoms. No lower half exhibited fabric for the backside any larger than the fabric from the frontside. Meaning you'd better love your booty and want to share it with the world, because that's exactly what you'd be doing with those babies.

For kicks, I popped into a store clearly intended for the lower teen set, only to find that their offerings were even smaller than the rest out there -- suits so small that only the most anorexic of eight year olds could manage to pull them off.

And here I thought I was being somewhat risqué in my Victoria's Secret string number. Puh! It would be like showing up at the beach in a muumuu to these people.

What I don't understand - and what I assume I'll find out should I make the trek down the coast to the beach before I leave here - is what we normal-sized girls are to do? Are we supposed to bare our bigger behinds, even if they aren't steely and the size of two chicken breast filets? Or are we supposed to march directly into the grandma section with the skirted one-pieces, then hide behind the dunes, waiting for nightfall before tiptoeing out to the shore? Not everyone here is Vogue perfect, not by any means. So there must be some protocol.


Just for the sake of science (?) and out of some sort of masochistic curiosity, I decided to suck it up (though apparently not nearly enough) and step into one of the more modest suits (relatively speaking, of course) that had caught my eye. It was a pair of striped pieces, alternating between white and bright pink. The bottoms were a wider "boy" cut, though still missing at least a yard of fabric compared to those at home.


I cannot emphasize enough how bad of an idea that was.

I laughed, I cried. I took it off very, very fast. As I left the store, having handed the delicate thing back to the salesgirl with a chuckle masking my broken soul, I made a vow that I have steadfastly kept: no more bikini shopping in Argentina.