Want. Need. Must-Have: My Swim Week Obsession

{Dress: American Apparel Ponte Tank Dress. Shoes: Patricia Pratt. Bag: The Find Auctions. Bracelet: Vintage. Photographed by Angeles Almuna.}

This is my last swim week post, I swear. I, too, have seen enough Lycra to make my retinas need a good heaping of sunscreen. On Friday night, the first night of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Swim, I threw on this red dress and made my way to the tents. This dress, by the way, is a girl’s best friend. I own it in three colors. Back to the point. The first night of shows I saw “it”—the “if I could only have one thing from all of swim week this would be it” piece. It all happened at the Wildfox show. The “it” being the blue terrycloth high-waisted Barbie suit with little cap sleeves. It was ’70s Malibu Barbie come to life. I could immediately see myself in it with a pair of Candies standing in front of one of my Enchanted Plastic Barbie pics. Want. Need. Must Have. The next day, at the Wildfox party at Boulan, I interrogated the publicist. Turns out, I can’t get my hands on the suit until November, when the collection launches. Damnit! Everything about the suit screamed “GINGER NEEDS ME.” I really hate it when clothes talk to you. It’s haunting. And no, I don’t mean that in a I-need-to-take-meds sort of way. My fellow shop-a-holics know exactly how this little scenario plays out. But when the thing you want. need. must have. isn’t available for months to come, it’s just an unfulfilled craving. Sort of like when you need to eat icing straight out of the canister, but you don’t have any, so you eat peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon and the want is still there. And eventually, however many days later, you break down and go to CVS at like 11:45 p.m. and find said icing and literally take the lid and foil off and lick it out of the canister on the drive home. Not that I’ve ever done anything remotely like that …

So yeah, I’ll be the first in line online to score this suit when it comes out. Until then, I’ll be buying canisters of icing at the local drug store. Thank god it’s high-waisted.

Mine-ish.