Summer Fashions and Bikini Horrors

Living in a holiday resort affords boatloads of amusement every summer, when hordes of visitors arrive from all over the world to enjoy the sun, the beach and the restaurants which characterise our little Spanish coastal town.

It is possible to amuse oneself simply by taking a seat at a beachside café to watch the fashion parade of coloured sarongs, weird hats and painful looking thongs strolling by.

It is very easy to identify the nationalities of the various tourists, and we often have competitions to see who can identify the most categories, such as ‘Italian Stallion,’ (these are the characters who stuff their private parts into Speedos designed for a four year old) ‘French Fashion Freak,’ (elegant sandals and designer swimwear) or ‘Burned British Bulldog,’ (this describes a British man with a large sunburned beer belly).

There are code words for the certain levels of sun exposure. ‘Milkbottle’ is the palest grade, followed by ‘Smoked Salmon,’ ‘Smoked Mackerel’ and ‘Boiled Lobster.’ You get extra points for spotting the twits who have fallen asleep in the sun with a head band on or an over large pair of sunglasses, giving their faces that shocked panda motif.

I am always stunned to see how many women wear skimpy bikinis no matter what size or shape they might be. On the beach only this week I saw an enormous lady hauling her cellulite infested frame out of a deckchair in a thronged bikini, and waddle her way down to the water’s edge quite happily, completely impervious to shocked stares and whispered remarks.

British tourists on holiday with the family are easy to spot. The father of the group and the children are always wearing brand new, snowy white trainers; the mother always strolls along the seafront awkwardly carrying a woolly cardigan over one arm, even if the temperature is nearly forty degrees.

Occasionally there are contenders for a special mention, the ones who like to draw comment by exposing themselves on a beach which exercises a strict non nudity policy, or deposit themselves on a restaurant chair whilst still covered in sand and sun oil.

An interesting departure from the usual materialised this summer in the form of leggings, worn mostly by British women, under summer dresses. The British summer has been very bad this year and you can understand leggings being worn beneath summer frocks when the outdoor temperature is only five degrees. In Spain, however, these ladies are sweating in leggings, in thirty five degrees!

Fashion is a strange creature and one we continue to observe with interest.

Jan Gamm writes reflections on life with an emphasis on world travel. She has lived in many countries and traveled extensively in the Far East, the Middle East, America, South America and throughout the South Pacific. She writes for fun and for money whenever she can manage it.