If you break into a sweat just hearing the words “bikini shopping,” you’re not alone. Finding a two-piece suit with the perfect cut, coverage and support is no easy feat and the process can be especially frustrating for curvier women.
Sonny Turner, a model and body positivity blogger, is fed up with the limited bikini options available for plus-size shoppers. She recently took swimwear designers to task in a post about “the reality of shopping as a thick/plus size woman.”
“Changing rooms can be scary places,” Turner, who is based in London, captioned a series of dressing room selfies on Instagram. She said the two-piece she was trying on was the largest size available at one shop. “High street store bikinis do not cater for women of my body type. Majority of online stores don't either.”
Turner, 19, decided to give designers some tips for making swimsuits for plus-size women.
“Big breasts need underwire for support for a youthful lift. We need cup sizes that correlate to bra sizes and they need to go past DD,” she wrote. “We need straps that aren’t so tight it’s as though our neck is about to snap off. We need bikini bottoms that don’t give (us) wedgies when we walk.”
Turner also blasted brands that offer limited style options for curvy women.
“We deserve more choice in the selection for our body type that isn’t just the generic black swimsuit with a kimono,” she wrote. “Yes believe it or not, some of us actually want a thong bikini, the whole selection doesn’t have to be high-waisted.”
Her passionate list of demands struck a chord with thousands of women, who have been flooding her post with comments like “PREACH” and “THIS IS SO TRUE.”
This isn’t the first time Turner has spoken up about swimsuits and body positivity. In another recent post, she offered her two tips for achieving a beach-ready body.
“Put a swimsuit or bikini on," she wrote as the first tip. Her second tip: "That’s it.”
Turner added, “You don’t need to lose weight in order to have a ‘bikini body.’” Bottom line, Turner says, every body is a bikini body and it's time for swimsuit designers to recognize that.
“It’s not fair that we can’t … wear cute swimwear just because we are built differently,” she wrote. “Make clothes for all (sizes).”