The Rosemarie Look is a weekly series featuring vintage photos of my English grandmother, Rosemarie, combined with links to similar pieces that loosely replicate her classic style today. Her husband, Edward (my grandfather), took these pictures. (You can see the whole series here.)
The Rosemarie Look is a celebration of my grandmother and of timeless style, but it's also a way to honor everyone who's traveled to the U.S., as she did in her 20s. It's for every foreigner, past and present, who came to this country, fell in love and stayed; who, at times, didn't feel they belonged, and yet who left an indelible impression on their loved ones and everyone they knew.
Years after the pictures above were taken, when my grandmother was in her 70s, I remember her having an understated elegance at the beach even then. She had her go-to black one-piece swimsuit that draped and gathered in all the right places. She usually wore a huge, flouncy white hat that she had made herself; she was always folding the front part back so it wouldn't fall in her face. I remember she would take a few moments for herself to swim laps in the ocean. I loved watching the steady rhythm of her strokes from the shore.
Today, one-piece bathing suits look quite different, of course, than hers does here. It seems there are two kinds of one-pieces now: ones that border on dowdy and ones that are almost over-the-top sexy, with super high leg cutouts and low front and back cutouts. I wanted to find something with a retro feel that was sexy in a simple, classic way. Here, a few picks that are reminiscent of Rosemarie's look above.
The Retro One-Piece Swimsuit
Orange
Ruffles
Striped boyleg
Orange and mint
Striped ruffle
Sailboat print
Polka-dot ruffle
Wishing you all the best weekend and lots of summery, beachy, warm-weather kinds of positive energy!
Xoxo, Heather