Androgynous looking Swimwear for teen

[Mydustymonstera]

Hey shoppers
I’m trying to find some alternative swimwear to suggest to my teen daughter. she does not want to look in any way girlie or feminine. I just want her to feel comfortable at the beach! Her style is v androgynous. She’s sent a link to a swim top which I’m not keen on so trying to find some alternatives.

I’m thinking tankini / crop top in plain black, no cutaways or flounces or ‘shape enhancing’; not padded or wired, a blurb on the site that doesn’t talk about flattering one’s figure… bonus points if the models are boyish looking. I’m really struggling to find this even in sportswear and surf sites. The swim shorts we have sorted in plain black, it’s just the top.
it’s for a beach holiday where it will be hot.
she’s in adult sizes. Medium/ 10-12. Don’t think we’ll get away with age 13-15.
thanks for any help!

I am (a lot) older than your DD but pretty athletic looking for my age.

I got this swimsuit last year because likewise, I've never been girly. It looks really good on. Like a cross between a shortie wetsuit and a swimsuit. It's quite covering of the chest area if that's a concern too but not thick like a wetsuit. To me it looks like the kind of thing a sporty female surfer might wear in a hotter country than the UK.

Women's One Piece Boyleg Swimsuits Sports Athletic Training Bathing Suit Color Block Rash Guard Short Sleeve Zipper Front Surfing Diving Swimming Costume Ladies Wetsuit Modest Swimwear Black + Gray L : Amazon.co.uk: Fashion

Agree - my DD wears shorts or board shorts and rash vests. Lots of good options that aren’t frilly and stereotypical flouncy girlie stuff

I liek androdgenous swim wear and I think Finisterre have the best range. I like their wetsuit fabric ranges a lot: https://finisterre.com/collections/womens-recycled-swimsuits-bikinis

Give anything that compresses a swerve!
I was a massive tomboy and just wore speedos and a hypercolour T-shirt.

I was a real tomboy growing up and got all my swimwear from swim shops attached to swim clubs. Just practical professional brands like Speedo and Arena etc. I just wanted people not to look at me but to also enjoy swimming, to be practical.

menswear has all this weird netting inside

That's to keep the budgie caged, otherwise the hems riding up might show more legs than just two.

The girl is having problems with female puberty and, reading the OP's updates, is likely to be "gender questioning", which is highly correlated with autism in girls. If she's autistic, she won't have the social skillset to cope with men and boys ogling her and will want to cover up as a defence mechanism. She may also have sensory issues with wet standard t-shirts (cold, flappy in the water, heavy) and the swim camp or pool might not allow her to wear streetwear in the water.

I am autistic and struggled with both the physical changes (periods WTF, where did these lumps on my chest come from?) and the predatory male attention. I basically stopped swimming as a teen, unless it was in the sea where I could put a t-shirt and shorts over my swimsuit. As an adult, I still wear a rash vest and board shorts. I cannot stand having my breasts or thighs visible to men.

The OP's commitment to finding a way for her daughter to continue swimming is commendable.

for days when she doesn't feel like she wants her big boobs to feel like a normal part of her body not message to men (i.e most days)

Yep, this. I remember the adult in charge telling me not to float on a lilo on my back because a skeevy paedo was stalking me around the pool ogling my tween tits, which were already C cup. He should have been thrown out for noncing, but that's how patriarchy works: tween girls are blamed for what adult men do.

It's misogyny writ large that men treat big boobs like an intentional, chosen message and not the naturally-occuring body parts that they are.

Sometimes the kindest act we can do for other women and girls is to help them navigate patriarchy as best as they can, and in this thread, that means helping tweens buy swimwear that they feel comfortable in.

So, I came here to suggest Mountain Warehouse and got distracted.

Regardless of vendor, my swimming costume is:

• A bra-fitted bikini top from a full-bust specialist because having F cup boobs without bra-sized supportive swimwear feels like my boobs are being crushed downwards into my lower ribs.
• A rash top or sports fabric singlet over the top, to keep men's pervy eyes out.
• Either: just boyleg bikini shorts, which aren't a "set" with the bikini top because exactly zero full-bust swimwear makers offer boyleg shorts ; or the standard bikini knickers that go with the bikini top, worn with board shorts over.

A supportive top + boyshorts + rash top combination might work for OP's daughter, because part of not coping with female puberty is not liking how breasts feel.

The advantage of having the full bikini set is that I can use the sauna without having half my thighs covered and I can wear just the nice matching bikini during women-only swim sessions.