Holiday season is approaching and while my body is not in tiptop bikini shape (even though some say a body is a bikini body when you put a bikini on),
and I usually prefer a tankini, this bandeau bikini from Masquerade was just so elegant and well-suited for my general style. I’m not a flower girl in clothing so neither am I that with bikinis. It was a bit of a risk as the cups only run to G and I’m a GG normally, but I was delighted when I tried it on. It’s supportive, it stays put, and the bandeau is like a necklace, which looked great even when I threw a black strappy top over it to go to the grocery store (we’re having summer weather already in May!). I’ve also ordered bandeau tops from Bravissimo in the past in G cup and they fitted ok-ish, but they are a welcome change with the integrated bra for the shoulders.
I was delighted to see that they are selling a lovely bandeau top now that goes up to H cup!!! (Lightly Padded Underwired Halterneck Top by Bravissimo) I must get that for summer. It looks even nice enough for workwear under a jacket. Then after work remove the jacket and head out to the terrace with friends in the sun top.
But back to tankinis and bikinis. To put a corporate spin on this post I’ll explore corporate summer outings a bit, and this is something I’d love to hear from you readers as well. Can you wear a bikini or a tankini on a corporate outing or trip where you are at the beach at some point, on a cruise or somewhere where there’s a pool?
I’ve managed to shock people abroad with my Finnish approach to public pool behavior, but luckily not in a work setting! But this is very much a cultural thing and you can easily make mistakes abroad when people remove some clothing.
Here we are a nation of five million people with 1.5 million saunas and learning to bathe in sauna comes as naturally as learning to speak. Both women and men bathe in the sauna but hardly ever together except within the family. Also if wearing swimsuits / towels men and women sometimes can bathe in the sauna together – and ok, even then men sometimes don’t wear anything as they often don’t mind being naked. Women don’t do that. And if it’s a company outing and there are foreign women present, we usually help them out and ask the men to put something on or have separate turns in the sauna. Then women always go first.
But to put it short, here we do wear swimwear on corporate outings if there is an option to go swimming + sauna. Most often women and men go to the sauna separately so in that case even in corporate setting people don’t wear anything to the sauna but you don’t HAVE to go naked, local people just do. And showering is always done without a swimsuit. Again, you don’t HAVE tok local people just do.
When we put these local habits into international context, I’m not comfortable with them. Nudity and even just busts are so over- sexualized so without our natural approach to the subject due to the sauna culture, it becomes uncomfortable. Too many times have I seen foreign men here who taint the sauna experience by sexualizing the otherwise natural mood. I do understand why though, they just are not used to it and see it in a different light. But this is why if the corporate outing is abroad or if there are lots of foreigners I might even avoid the sauna altogether, but usually it goes the other way around. Foreign women skip the sauna and locals go. Most often foreign men take the sauna experience on the men’s turn though!
Hmm, that makes me wonder why women are so much shyer with their bodies? It must be the body shaming the media does intentionally and unintentionally and possibly the modesty reasons that were discussed on last weeks Bosom Blogger modesty week.
I’m Ukrainian and the idea of having shower in a swimsuit sounds quite strange to me (showers are separate here), saunas are sometimes separate, sometimes they’re not, then we wear swimsuits or towels. I prefer towels, because saunas kill elastic really quickly. And if it’s a girl only, I’m getting the towel just to sit on it.
But naked men seems to be Finnish thing.
Showering in a swimsuit did not come to my mind in a water park in New Zealand either but they did do that, I didn’t…
Yeah, do think the Finnish men and nudity is a local thing. They just don’t care and it’s not like us women haven’t seen a man naked and it isn’t even that much of a pretty sight so we just don’t care 😀
I think it’s just on of this cultural things about modesty )). If everybody does that and you’ve seen it thousand times then it’s just normal and doesn’t draw your attention.
When I travel, I always ask staff about the local cultural norms to figure out what I have to wear in the sauna and whether it is mixed or single-sex. Nothing wrong with nudity in my opinion, but I do know that in some cultures there is a problem so that’s why I try to find out about the local views.
At my last job, I took saunas with my co-workers (mostly male, one other female) while we were on a business trip, and nobody thought anything of it. In fact, a day in the spa & sauna was proposed for the next team outing!
I can’t really contribute much other than reminding me of an anecdote I heard when some of my family visited cousins in Norway. They (my dad’s siblings and mother) were *shocked* that one of my (grown) Norwegian cousins felt perfectly comfortable walking from the bathroom to his room with just a towel.
Oh- and growing up the justification for the swimsuit shower (versus a “normal” shower) was that most people wear their suits to the pool and a lot of places here will just have an outdoor shower head you rinse off under before jumping in. The bathroom facilities at the pool club in my hometown left a lot to be desired so the less time spent in them the better.