Taking The Last-Minute Plunge: Finding A Swimsuit All Year Round

“Mykonos!?” It’s 4:47 p.m. Tuesday, and your boyfriend has just surprised you with an impromptu trip to Greece. It would be a relative disaster if it weren’t such a dream proposition. There’s barely enough time to pack, and where are you going to find the perfect bathing suit this late in the season? Somehow, calling your best friend to say, “Can I borrow your polka dot Balenciaga bikini?” doesn’t seem quite right. Personally, I don’t own a bikini (my pale skin practically self-destructs in the sun), but I hoard plunging Eres one-pieces with the rationale that they’re perfect for a girl without a tan. Bikini or not, we’re still faced with a problem. Where to find a new suit this late in the season? Or, indeed, any time when they’ve been cleared off the racks of department stores and boutiques coast to coast?

So we turn to girls seasoned in this sort of dilemma: Where can the perfect swimsuit be sourced all year round? Take Lisa Marie Fernandez, the stylist behind her own line of surf-inspired swimwear with fans like Lauren Santo Domingo and Eugenie Niarchos. “I’ve always been super-spontaneous with travel and never know where I’m going,” says Fernandez. “I actually never really shop in the summer for bathing suits.” She suggests shopping online is the best bet for finding a last-minute suit, at either net-a-porter.com or clickini.com. “Some people shy away from buying online,” she says, “but sites allow you to see a great still life of a suit, or both front and back.”

“No one does a swimsuit quite as well as the Brazilians,” says Bev Malik, a freelance buyer and fashion director known for her skill at finding the best special fashion worldwide. She recommends doing some research at triya.com.br (the suits are sold at J Sisters; jsisters.com) and Osklen (osklen.com), the Brazilian outdoors brand with an outpost in New York that always has a suit style in store. Malik also likes lanouvellevague.com for Italian label Dosed’s “beautiful bikinis with gorgeous trims sourced in the finest factories in France and Italy.”

The off-season swimsuit hunt takes a new spin when you consider the Brazilian summer is the North American winter and vice versa. This was part of the argument made by Eres founder Irene Leroux when, in 1968, the Parisian public thought she was insane to sell swimsuits year round. She was quick to counter, citing traveling South Americans and, of course, the jet set, who just couldn’t—and wouldn’t—wait to buy their new suits.

“Ten years ago, before we opened the store, one of my friends argued that it’s absolutely ridiculous that you can’t buy a bathing suit year round in this town,” says Beth Buccini, co-owner of Kirna Zabête. The Greene Street store now offers clients the option to custom-order Lisa Marie Fernandez’s suits (it’s a service also available online at the store’s Web site; kirnazabete.com). Other stores with reliable swim options include Missoni’s New York flagship (Missoni suits are also available at Net-a-Porter) and Malia Mills (maliamills.com), while Norma Kamali’s store and Web site (normakamali.com) have over 300 styles of suits and a Try Before Service. For Tomas Maier swimwear, turn to the Manhattan-based catrionamackechnie.com (if you’re in New York, they’ll even messenger your suit from its Tribeca headquarters). Of course, there’s always the classic and reliable go-to, J.Crew, available at jcrew.com.

After all this exploration, I’m left smitten with the Azzaro Floristique swimsuit (available at Net-a-Porter). It fits in with my Eres stash—and I’ll have something special should anything arise, even if it’s only a surprise trip to Montauk.