Boggled by this thread.
I’m neither young nor old but I am very aware of fashion, especially as a beach loving swimmer who also swims in public pools.
thong bikinis are everywhere, in every shop where they sell swimwear.
I see them all the time on beaches and by pools in this country and abroad.
they are fashion, whatever we might think and know about the misogyny of fashion and the general patriarchal attitudes of modern society, this is what our (mainly) young people are being sold as the norm, and as fashionable, therefore acceptable.
influencers, people on music videos, horrible love island type programmes, events in Ibiza, vegas etc, many of the people who are popular in that kind of wannabe and celebrity culture are seen in thong swimwear , at parties, not just on beaches, even out clubbing as well is often topless on beaches (as has been seen for at least fifty years)
i remember seeing people in thongs and skimpy bikinis when i was travelling in Oz and other places in the late 80s, i was so unconfident and i did wear a one piece for most of my youth and felt incredibly frumpy.
now im older i dont care , i wouldnt publicly wear a thong partly because I don’t have the figure I’d want in order to show off my behind but also because it feels very much like a young persons fashion and I draw a line for my own dignity as a middle aged overweight woman but in my garden i absolutely sunbathe topless and in a thong, that desire to be fully tanned or as fully as possible has not left me.
i wouldn’t be surprised if those women ‘laughing’ in the restaurant ‘in their fifties’ weren’t just laughing and retelling their own stories of what they wore in their youth and maybe how people would respond if they wore it at this age, that’s the sort of conversation I’d have with my friends, not one of disgust at a girl in a thong bikini on an actual beach albeit one with chairs sinking into the sand and a cafe.