“Ladies, you're never too old for a bikini”

Ladies, you're never too old for a bikini

Posted: 04 Sep 2010 12:55 AM PDT

By Rachel Johnson

Forget the economy - there's only one double-dip issue I'm interested in this summer. Elizabeth Hurley has revoked her self-imposed ban on wearing a bikini and has been spotted, according to my primary source of world news in August, i.e. Hello! magazine, "relaxing on a Spanish cruise in a revealing leopard-print number".

Before this critical sighting, Hurley, 45, was on record as saying: "I wouldn't wear the towelling miniskirt, bikini top and flip-flops - those days are over. I'm never again going to sit eating lunch on a boat in just a skimpy bikini. I don't feel comfortable doing that any more."
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What defeatist words those were. And how glad I am, Liz, that you've recanted in all your itsy-bitsy leopard print glory!

I think you look toothsome as ever in your scanties and you amply support (no pun intended!) my theory - which is that if a woman has breasts, and is under 60 or so, a bikini is almost always best. Here's why.

For a start, women are more conscious of their appearance than men.

On my packet of Kellogg's Special K this morning, there was a picture of a woman my age in a red bikini, scampering on the sand in the sunshine, and the words: "Love Your New Beach Shape!"

I can't count the number of articles I've read over the past few weeks exhorting me and my sex to get my best bikini body ever, or lose a kilo or two before summer.

Meanwhile, on the beach in Pelion, Greece, recently, I regularly had to cover my eyes as hairy-backed, pot-bellied gents in the 60-to-80 age range strutted their stuff in budgie-smugglers on the beach, or ambled into tavernas clad only in sandals and pouches.

Yes, when it comes to the Speedo season of the summer, the sight of any man in tightie whities (Giorgio Armani last month in Formentera - j'accuse) is much more offensive to the eye than even a roly-poly matron of a certain age in a two-piece.

As all GPs well know, women take care of themselves better than men.

And this extends to their appearance. It's because - sad, but still true - we're judged more harshly than men on how we look.

Which means that we can get away with bikinis - obviously not the buttock-exposing, dental floss affairs you see on Rio's Ipanema beach - well into our 50s, even 60s, without frightening the horses too much.

Indeed, I think women in their prime these days can be in better shape now than they were in their "youth".

When Sadie Frost was pictured in (inevitably) Ibiza last year, the papers praised her looks to the skies.

As the Daily Mail put it: "Tanned and toned, Miss Frost looks more like a woman in her 20s than a 44-year old mother of three."

Now, I am also a 44-year-old mother of three and I look nowhere near as good as the trimline Ms Frost, but I still wear a bikini for lots of good reasons.

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