Who's Ready for Swimwear? Definitely Not Frank!

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

You know Frank—he's been writing about menswear, sales, television, new shops, the recession, Lisa Loeb, the Golden Girls and getting blasted for Racked for almost two years. Well, we think it's time you got to know him and his quirky-irreverent views on life and fashion even better with his column: Love, Frank. Taking the form of an open letter and always signed with love, Frank will rant about whatever style-related conundrum he encounters in a given week. So buckle your two-toned leather Moschino belts, folks, it's going to be ? Something.

Dear Swimwear-wearers,

We wished for spring and it came. The problem is—and we should've expected this—spring didn't just stop at spring. Now summer is upon us and we're wondering if we can just go on ahead and skip it.

Not that we don't love cold beers and barbecued things and wearing stars-and-stripes on the Fourth of July. Rather, because suddenly, beaches and pools and sunbathing and all that other summery, sandy, beery, coconut-reeking whatever is upon us. And, well, who the hell wants to wear a bathing suit?

It's not even necessarily a weight issue. It's more an issue of not wanting to be half naked; of being more comfortable amid layers of print and color; of liking to put our hands in our pockets.

Further, bathing suits are just never that cute. And unlike a perfectly-fitting pair of pants or a great suit or fantastic sweater—bathing suits aren't transformative. You in that great suit? You could be a decision-maker, someone important. You in a bathing suit? That's just a whole lot of you in stupid bathing suit feeling naked and wishing that walk from wherever you set up the blanket down to the water was much, much, much shorter.

But, we suppose we're being a bit dramatic here. It's harder for women. It's more pressure—or so we're told.

Thing is: Women get the option of modest one-pieces; tankinis; retro suits with little built-in skirts; the opportunity to show up in a sand-grazing caftan or slinky animal-print wrap—without anyone thinking she's a terrifying drag queen with a litany of mental issues. So, ladies, maybe you should shut your collective traps.

At least you're not Italian. If you were, you could be visiting relatives back in the motherland this summer. And all your aunts and lady-cousins and the other womenfolk—who, incidentally, wear bikinis into retirement age and think nothing of popping the top in lieu of tan-lines—could spend the duration of your stay questioning the fact that you didn't pack something more stringy until, finally, one such woman (in her 70s, known for sheer dresses and everywhere boobs) would run into her terra cotta-tiled beach cottage and come out with an assortment of six or so bikinis of every stripe that she'd just about insist you borrow and put on right then and there.

(This may or may not happen to the Gargione clan each and every time one of us crosses the Atlantic.)

So, there's a little perspective. We'll be caftan shopping.