A letter from a reader

At 58, I had quietly given up on feeling like myself in a swimsuit.

Karen Jennings
Hobart, Tasmania · September 2026

I have never written anything like this before. I am not a writer, I am a retired admin assistant from Hobart who walks her golden retriever most mornings and watches a lot of quiz shows in the evening, so please bear with me.

If you are reading this on your phone and rolling your eyes, I get it. A stranger on the internet telling you a swimsuit changed her life? That is exactly the kind of thing I would scroll past too. I am only writing because a friend said I should, and because what happened was so small and so ordinary that nobody would make it up.

The compromise I stopped noticing

For about ten years I had settled into a quiet kind of compromise. I owned swimsuits. They did the job. But I never felt like myself in one. I would pull on the bottoms, tug at the top, check the mirror at a strange angle, sigh, and put a kaftan over the whole thing the moment I got out of the water.

I had accepted this as just how it is once you are my age. Comfortable or feeling like yourself. Practical or pretty. You do not choose. It just sort of happens, the way your reading glasses migrate from every handbag in the house to none of them.

I am not blaming anyone. The shops I tried simply did not have what I wanted, and I did not have the vocabulary to ask for it. I just stopped expecting the swimsuit bit of summer to be a nice part of it.

Comfortable or feeling like yourself. I thought that was the only choice I had.

What my granddaughter said in the garden

The thing that shifted it was embarrassingly small. We were at my daughter’s place for a Sunday lunch and my granddaughter, who is six and has no filter at all, climbed into my lap and said, “Nana, you look like a beach ball.” She meant the kaftan. She was not being mean. She was being six.

My sister turned up that afternoon in a two piece I had never seen her wear before, and she looked completely like herself. She told me she had ordered it from a small Australian place called Bruny Boutique, and that they do a proper tummy control panel and a huge range of designs. I went home that night and had a proper look on my phone, lying on the bed with the dog at my feet.

I ordered the Henrietta Tummy Control Tankini Set because the description mentioned the panel so many women ask for, and the polkadot print looked like something I would actually wear. I did not tell anyone I had ordered it. I just waited for it to arrive.

The lunch where three people said something

The first proper test was a friend’s birthday lunch at a pub garden about a month later. I wore the Henrietta with a pair of wide leg linen trousers on top and only took the trousers off when we walked down to the water for a photograph.

Three separate people asked about it before the main course arrived. One was my friend Sue, who never notices what anyone is wearing and once told me I had changed my hair when I had not. She just said, “That is a lovely colour on you,” and looked a bit surprised with herself.

I had not been expecting that. I had been expecting to feel self conscious and to wish I had my kaftan in the car. I did not. I stood by the water in a swimsuit at 58 and felt, for the first time in a long time, that the person in the photographs was me.

Three things I learnt from one small purchase

One. The tummy control panel is the whole point, so do not be shy about needing it. I spent years pretending I did not want smoothing across the midriff, as if wanting to look nice in a swimsuit at my age was somehow indulgent. It is not. The panel in the Henrietta smooths without that stiff, sucked in feeling, and I wish I had stopped being precious about it a decade ago.

Two. Order two sizes of opinion, not one size of hope. I measured myself properly with a tape, wrote it down, and then compared it to the Bruny Boutique size guide before I clicked. I am between sizes on a good day and a bit bigger on a bloated one, so I went by the bigger measurement. It fit first try, which has never happened to me with swimwear before.

Three. Wear it at home in the mirror before you wear it out. I tried the whole set on in the bedroom the morning it arrived, with the curtains open and the dog watching. I walked to the full length mirror, turned sideways, tugged the straps, bent down to pick up a slipper. That ten minute rehearsal is the reason I walked into that lunch feeling calm rather than braced.

The bit I was suspicious about

I will be honest about the money, because that is the bit I was most suspicious of. The Henrietta was $80.95 in the sale, down from $159.95, and my first thought was that there had to be a catch.

There was not one I could find. Bruny Boutique is a small Australian place that sells direct, which is why the price is what it is, and the set was reduced because it is their twenty two year anniversary sale. I read the reviews before I ordered. The rating is 4.6 stars across 917 reviews, which is the kind of slightly imperfect number that actually made me trust it more, because nothing real is a perfect five.

Returns are thirty days, which I have not needed to use. I am not a fashion writer and I do not get any perk for saying this. I just thought the price was fair and wanted to say so, because usually when something seems too reasonable there really is a catch.

What I would say over a cup of tea

If a friend asked me about it over tea I would say this: it is a swimsuit, not a miracle, and you will still be you in it. Only a slightly more comfortable version of you, who can get in the pool without arranging a kaftan on the way out.

Have a look at the Bruny Boutique website, read the reviews properly, and measure yourself with the curtains open. That is the whole speech. I am not going to tell you what to do.

It is part of their twenty two year anniversary sale, which is a nice honest reason for a reduction.

I live in these now. I did not see that coming.

Karen

Henrietta Tummy Control Tankini Set

★★★★★ 4.6 out of 5 from 917 reviews

$159.95 $80.95

• Tummy control panel that smooths and supports the midriff
• Soft stretch swim fabric that moves with you in and out of the water
• Pleated detailing at the bust for a softer finish
• Classic polkadot print with a secure, removable strap fit
• Real pockets and a quick drying finish for holidays and pool days

Have a look at the Henrietta

It is part of their twenty two year anniversary sale, which is a nice honest reason for a reduction.