Bad news for bikinis

Bikinis are out. I read it on the Internet so it must be true (teenage logic). Now, one-piece bathing suits are the fashion. Of course, they should be animal prints: fat, distorted zebra stripes or leopard spots which come in pink and blue. I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but this troubling trend of bikinis bottoming out could mean the end of Carnival mas as we now know it.

Is anyone worried, upset or as enraged as I am about this news? What is wrong with fashion gurus? Why do they want women to cover their bellies? This is the age of belly-button piercing. How is that going to work with a one-piece bathing suit? A one-piece bathing suit will start to look like a sieve.

It seems that the world is becoming more reactionary. Everyone wants to go back in time, and if so to what: the red-piece bathing suit (no bra included) that Farah Fawcett-Majors once wore? The next thing we know, they’ll want those original one-piece bathing suits that look like short cycling pants on the legs.

What really gets my goat is that those fashion gurus who feed the Internet with information about what’s in and what’s out don’t seem to consider the consequences of such irresponsible stories. They don’t think how they could turn the whole Carnival fashion industry upside down.

They need to realise that Carnival mas depends on bikinis. Beads just won’t swing on a one-piece bathing suit like they would on a bikini. And where do they expect mas bands to put that strategically placed coin that is now the defining part of a bikini bottom? Imagine that on a one-piece bathing suit. We all know that bikinis are actually more flattering than one-piece bathing suits on all women regardless of the body type.

That’s why plump women don’t mind wearing them. With bikinis, I’m told by my pencil-thin assistant, Nicha, fat women sport nothing more than a little muffin bulge. With a one-piece bathing suit, women get layers of fat rolling all over the place like some out-of-timing wave on Maracas beach. But remember, we’re not really talking about the aesthetics of the bikini here.

We’re talking about Carnival as business and the bottom line is this: If we’re going to cut to one-piece bathing suits and follow the current trend—and we are a follow-fashion nation by nature—there will be dire economic consequences for mas bands. It means they have to use at least 50 times more cloth for a costume. That’s going to jack up the price of Carnival costumes even higher.

And what will masqueraders do with those headpieces covered with feathers? A fluffy headpiece that looks like a bird landed on a masquerader’s head really goes perfectly with a bikini. It would look ridiculous with a one-piece bathing suit. It would look like Godzilla now crawling out of a swamp with a red ibis on its head. That is just not cool.

Of course, there is a creative solution for every problem. Mas bands could sell those one-piece bathing suits that ice skaters sport, you know the ones that have flesh-coloured cloth that give the illusion that the ice skater is half-naked. That could work. But we must look on the bright side. If this is the fashion trend, we’ll just have to cope with the fashion gurus, and remember, animal prints are in. I can envision a whole new level of mas now.

We can turn that steaming black asphalt into the Serengeti Plain with some really cool bands slithering, crawling and slinking down the streets. We could have galloping gazelles, zesty zebras, cantankerous cobras, lazy lions (that perk up to all of those command socas because lions are used to lion tamers) and lascivious leopards because we must inject Carnival with as much sexual innuendo as possible.

We could start from the ground up and redesign the entire Carnival. I envision a band with sections of beetles, cockroaches, lizards or any little crunchy or slimy creature that crawl around in the dirt. All that is required is some nice, shiny lamé. From there, we can graduate to bunnies with fuzzy bunny tails and bunny ears. What really makes this costume though, is the choice of pink or blue false, buck teeth. Maybe instead of a standard, masqueraders could carry a rabbit’s foot.

There are so many creative directions we can go in. As a matter of fact, we could just skip the bathing suits for women altogether. I don’t mean go naked. I mean design costumes—real costumes that come in boxes with tissue inside like fashionable clothes that used to be  packaged in fancy department stores as opposed to costumes that now fit in envelopes.

What a novel idea: costumes—real costumes: no glue, no sequins, no beads, no feathers, just miles and miles of flowing cloth draping regal masqueraders tipping their make-believe champagne glasses to the sky while miming, “Bottoms up.”