A boat-neck dress built over a one-piece swimsuit in Lime Ricki’s Sky Gingham check — one garment to pull on instead of a suit plus a cover-up.
Highlights
✓A dress layer over a built-in one-piece — the swimsuit is inside the dress, so there is no separate bottom to buy, match or pack. You swim in it and then walk off the sand already dressed, which is the entire point of the shape.
✓Boat neckline — wide across the collarbone and high at the centre front, so the chest stays covered without a low scoop. It is the neckline that stays put when you are bending over a towel or lifting a child out of the water.
✓Double-lined shelf bra with sewn-in pads — XXS excepted. The pads stay put through a swim and a wash rather than folding over in the machine, and Lime Ricki supplies the smallest size with no padding, so XXS sits closer to the body through the bust.
✓80% nylon, 20% spandex, UPF 50+ per Lime Ricki — a swim knit that holds its shape wet and dries fast, which matters more on a dress than on a bikini because there is simply more of it. Rinse it in cool fresh water after chlorine or salt and dry it flat out of direct sun.
✓Nine sizes, XXS to 4X — and gingham is a small, even check, so it reads as a quiet pattern at every point in that run rather than stretching into something else at the top of it.
This is the suit for a day that is not only swimming: a lake with a picnic in it, a hotel pool you walk to through a lobby, a morning at the beach that turns into lunch. A gingham check also reads as summer clothing rather than as swimwear, so nobody will blink when you keep it on for the afternoon.
The same swim dress comes in a floral as the Bouquet Boat-Neck Swim Dress, so the print is the real decision. If you want this check without the skirt over it, the Sky Gingham Tank One-Piece is the plain suit in the same fabric. Both sit with the rest of Women’s Swimwear and Cover-Ups.
Sky Gingham print. 80% nylon, 20% spandex, UPF 50+ sun protection per Lime Ricki. Boat-neck dress over a built-in one-piece, double-lined shelf bra with sewn-in pads — no padding in XXS. Nine sizes from XXS to 4X.
