Cora When it comes to shopping for swimsuits, we tend to get a little ahead of ourselves. Never mind that the opportunity to escape to the beach rarely arrives before Memorial Day, we start searching for our summer suit long before the weather shows any promise of warmth.
What we’ve come to discover, though, is that this behavior isn’t all that unique to us: Shoppers have been searching for and saving summer ’17 swimwear on sites like Pinterest for some time now—and these platforms have, in turn, been collecting some pretty fascinating data about what styles you’re going to see all over the beach and pool decks in the coming months. With this information, they’re also trying to make the process of finding the right suit less intimidating. Pinterest for one launched a new feature dubbed SwimSeeker earlier this month, which aims to take some of the guesswork out of shopping for bathing suits online by creating a personalized, curated feed of items based on a user’s answers to a short questionnaire. Pinterest, meanwhile, has put together a Top Trending Swimsuits board that details the most popular beach-going styles that users are feeling for summer ’17.
Despite serving different purposes (and catering to different audiences), there’s a surprising amount of overlap between the trends they’re highlighting this season. Case in point: All three identified one-pieces—specifically, those with a high cut—as an early winner for summertime. “I never thought I would say this but the one-piece has officially replaced the bikini as the most searched for a swimsuit on Polyvore,” Amy Wicks, the site’s senior fashion editor, told Glamour. In fact, all but one of the top ten swim trends for 2017 on the platform were one-pieces (that exception being the “bandage swimsuit,” which came in at number 5). At Pinterest, this style has benefitted from a 232 percent boost in popularity this year; meanwhile, Pinterest identified it as its top trending style for 2017. According to Wicks, “the one piece, formerly seen as super conservative, has done a total 180 and become the sexy summer must-have thanks to fresh style details like cutouts, mesh, crochet, tassels, and zippers—and, in some cases, [it replaces] traditional bodysuits as an evening look.”
We rounded up five of the standout swim silhouettes that are trending across the board, based on data provided by Pinterest, to help guide your summer ’17 shopping. Scroll for the full breakdown.
High-Cut
If you’ve been on Instagram at any point in 2017, this trend will come as no surprise. Favored by celebrities who seem to always be on vacation (at least according to social media) like Emily Ratajkowski, Bella Hadid, and Kylie Jenner, ’80s-style high-cut suits are shaping up to be the swimwear to beat this season. So far in 2017, someone has searched for “high-cut one-piece” on Pinterest every five minutes, the platform reports. (For some reason, it got 13,000 hits on that term on March 4, specifically.) It’ll come as no surprise, then, that “high-cut” and “high-waist” came in first and second, respectively, on Pinterest’s ranking of 2017 swim trends.
“High-leg searches are also spiking. We are guessing this will be a temporary thing, especially when we all hit the beach this summer (who wants to be seen in the same swimsuit as everyone else?).” The high-leg one-piece, specifically, has seen a 70 percent year-over-year increase, ranking number 1 on its top swim trends list based on user searches for 2017. “High-cut sides” were also flagged as a trending detail by the folks over at Pinterest.
