Swimsuit shopping is many women's idea of hell, right up there with public speaking, doing their taxes and a biennial pap smear.
I was 15 years old when I had my own swimsuit shopping nightmare. The family holiday was imminent and that cute boy from school was staying at the same resort as my family with his.
![The inventor of the tankini, Anne Cole, died this week but her invention has helped many women overcome their anxiety ...](/web/20170112091314im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/q/3/j/i/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtq3md.png/1484203866778.jpg)
My body was still doing strange bodily things that 15-year-old bodies have a tendency to do.
Some sympathetic sales assistant took pity on me – or my mother – and suggested a tankini.
![A tankini from the current Anne Cole collection.](/web/20170112091314im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/q/5/c/b/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gtq3md.png/1484203866778.jpg)
A tank-whatta?
A singlet-style top with bikini bottoms, a suit that gives you the freedom to use the bathroom without totally undressing, a suit that can be mixed and matched with other styles and didn't look like you were about to jump in the pool to swim your bronze medallion. It was genius. I think we left the shop with three.
As an adult the tankini has continued to save me on many occasions when PMS strikes or I just don't feel like being ogled by hundreds of pairs of eyes as I walk from towel to tide.
On occasions when I have worn a bikini in the ocean, only to be dumped by a wave, emerging topless, embarrassed and in search of the offending top, I wished I had been wearing a tankini.
![A tankini from the current Anne Cole collection.](/web/20170112091314im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/q/5/c/a/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gtq3md.png/1484203866778.jpg)
Or when I climbed all those steps of the waterslide in my one-piece, only to emerge at the bottom filled with adrenalin but with my suit up my butt for the world to see, I wish I had been wearing a tankini.
Anne Cole, inventor of the tankini, died this week, aged 90. While few women would recognise her name, many will recall a time her invention saved them from discomfort, embarrassment or a bout of low self-confidence.
Ms Cole, who died after a short illness, inherited her family's swimwear business and developed the suit in the late 1990s to address women's anxieties about swimwear and close the gap in the market between the bikini and one-piece wearer.
A post on the company's Instagram page on Thursday announcing her death said: "Anne once said, 'It took America's space program only ten years to land on the moon, but it took women's swimwear seventy years to move from the ankle to the crotch.'
"It was this sentiment that lead her to famously introduce the world to the 'tankini' in 1997. Her courage and contagious spirit will always be remembered and remains at the core of what we do."
The tankini has been a godsend for women whose boobs and butt aren't the same standard size (ie most of us), who've been pregnant, who've had a baby, or any other life event that changes our bodies in a way where putting on a swimsuit has been a burden rather than a welcome summer ritual.
While the one-piece is back in vogue and bikini styles vary from year to year, the tankini is a mainstay. It's the friendliest swimsuit to women, it's the one that truly says, "I am wearing this for no-one but myself."
And that's probably what Anne Cole had in mind when she designed her game-changing suit. Long may it be a feature on our beaches and at our pools over summer.
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