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How many is too many?

Blog friends, I have a question for you. I actually posed it on Twitter a week or two ago, and there was quite a bit of discussion brought up over it.

How many bathing suits/bikinis should a girl own??? What’s the magic number? How many is too many? What is the base number you absolutely must have?

I know that there are probably a number of factors involved in your rationale: where do you live? How often do you need to wear a bathing suit? Obviously, the answers to those questions would probably influence your numbers.

But…I’m just curious…for the sake of science…what your answers are. You see, living in Florida, I think that I might have accumulated a very exorbitant amount of bikinis over time. I usually buy a few new ones each year when I see sales. It’s convenient: the end of summer sales don’t really mean the end of summer for me, since I can visit the beach (almost) year-round. I get a lot of wear out of my bikinis, so I do feel like they are a necessary part of my wardrobe. I actually have an entire dresser drawer devoted to my swimwear:

There are 27 bikinis rolled up there in my drawer…which doesn’t actually account for all of the different combinations I’m able to make with them. I frequently mix and match tops/bottoms depending on my mood. So – I don’t even want to start calculating all of the different possibilities within the drawer…for the sake of this post: I have 27 tops and 27 bottoms. Yowza.

So – tell me: how many pieces of swimwear do you own? What is the “normal” number to have, in your opinion, based on the location you live in?

21 Comments

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  • Girl — I have like 5! And, usually, I can never find a matching suit because the pieces are strewn about. I need to take some organization tips from you!

  • I think the number of anything you own is directly related to how much you enjoy shopping for it. I, personally, HATE shopping for swim wear because I believe i look horrible in anything that I find. However, shoes and shirts, I tend to buy like groceries. lol =)

  • I can safely say that the 2.5 (one suit and then 2 tankini tops/1 bottom) that I own are complete overkill. To be fair, I live in England. To be even more fair, I lived in Texas when I bought the swimsuits and they were slight overkill then. And to be completely honest, if I had a bod like yours I’d probably live in bikinis 🙂

  • I live in south/central Texas, never go to the beach, and only go swimming when I go visit my parents or when we sneak into a neighboring apartment complex, which isn’t very often. Until this year, I only had one, but decided to get a couple extras for our honeymoon since we’d be on a cruise and were stopping a few times in the Caribbean. I now own three. They are not mix-and-matchable.
    Probably not what you wanted to hear, but there you go. I think I would have a lot more if I swam or went to the beach more often!

    • Allie – ah, a honeymoon is another great excuse to buy swimwear…haha! I might or might not have bought two new ones recently knowing that we’ll be on our belated honeymoon in a few months. 😉 And I wasn’t expecting to hear people say that they have as many as I do, because I think I’m probably pretty abnormal. I just was curious how many the average person has! It seems to be somewhere between 3-5 or so!

  • I probably have at least 20 that I have accumulated over the years. I think it is completely normal living in Florida. In fact when I was in Gainesville my roommate only had 1 meanwhile I had a different one for everything we did.

  • The more swimsuits the merrier! Sadly, I only have two or three suits. I live in L.A., but locals rarely ever actually go to the beach (maybe because most beaches here are kinda gross). I also don’t like shopping for swimwear. So, I agree with Brittney. 😉

  • Living in Milwaukee, some of the only use I get out of swimsuits is when we are on vacation. That said, I did a quick mental tally and I have 5. 🙂

  • Whoa, that is a lot ‘o swimsuits! I think I have eight or so…and some of them have only gotten one or two wears in. I only seem to sport them when on vacay.

  • Wow! I understand you live in Florida, but 27? REALLY? I guess it makes sense since you seem to love fashion. I haven’t really bought many clothes in the past three years except to replace clothes that are worn out. I’m trying to stick to my tight budget by wearing the clothes I own and not bringing many new ones home. Besides, I run out of room for new clothes anyway. I live in Maryland, 3 hours from the beach and I go to the beach probably once a year and the pool a dozen times or so. I have 5 bathing suits and one that fits well that I usually wear.

    • Debbie – thanks so much for your comment! I guess I should have also mentioned the fact that I’ve accumulated these bikinis over the course of almost 10 years or so…I tend to buy 2-3 new ones per year. I do frequent the beach here though (a few times a month, if not once/twice a week), so I end up getting a good amount of wear out of them!

  • I have three–a cute one piece, a bikini, and a sporty one-piece for doing actually swim workouts.

    That being said, I live in Wisconsin and you live in Florida, so automatically I think you are entitled to more!

  • I have 3 bikinis currently. I think I have 2 more from college at my parents’ place. At most, I get one per year at an end of season clearance. 27 is the most I’ve heard of one person having, and actually wearing!

  • I’ve often wondered this myself and while I still lived in Florida I actually felt like I didn’t have enough. I think I have about 5-6 but when you wear them everyday (which I did) then you really need more than that. Mine would fade so quickly from the sun!! I miss Florida 🙁

  • Oh my gosh this is embarrassing.. I don’t even live in beachy climate and I have.. close to 15 or 20 maybe? I have a habit of keeping them forever, though.. some I haven’t worn in years, or will wear once a season.. I just need to keep them for some reason!

    I need to do this kind of post, but about jeans. Because my collection is out. of. control.

  • I have around 55, bottoms and tops and some spare bottoms, I think its as with everything, if you like it allot you tend to have more.

    usually i wear them near daily, depending on the weather of course and many times i feel like it I wear them in the house too, for do the homework.

    not that i do spend allot of money on them, mainly they come from sales and some of them I found really cheap, hardly ever over $ 25.

    keeping them sorted out is an problem but I guess I joust found an solution, sort them out, make an pic of each pair and put each bottom and matching top in an Ziploc with its picture small printed out clear visual in front.

  • I have 2. But I think because I live in Colorado that’s a reasonable amount since I only get to go swimming in the summer and sometimes not even that much because of our bipolar weather.

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