Almost all swimwear care advice covers the twenty minutes after a swim. The longest stretch of a suit's life gets none of it: the eight or nine months between the last warm weekend of September and the first of June. Nothing dramatic happens in a drawer, which is why storage damage goes unnoticed until it is finished — a faint mildew smell, straps that have gone slack, a crease across the front panel that will not relax.
A suit does not rest over winter. It holds whatever condition you left it in, in whatever conditions you left it in, for most of a year. Four things decide how it comes out: what was still on the fabric, how dry it really was, what position it was held in, and where the drawer was. All four are settled in the ten minutes before it goes away.
Put it away clean, not just rinsed
Salt, chlorine and sunscreen residue do not go dormant. A rinse removes the bulk of what is in the knit but leaves oils and emulsifiers sitting against the fibre with nothing to interrupt them. Chlorine residue is the one to be strict about: it works on elastane slowly, and three quarters of a year is a long time for a slow process. The end-of-season wash is the wash that genuinely matters: cool water, a little mild detergent, rinsed until the water runs clear. Treat any sunscreen mark now: one that has sat through a winter is a different problem from one that is a day old.
Dry means bone dry
Mildew needs very little moisture and a great deal of time, and a swimsuit is built to supply both. Lining layers trap water between them, elastic channels hold it in the stitching, and moulded cups keep a reservoir in the foam long after the outside feels dry. Give it a full day or two flat on a towel in the shade, then turn it inside out and check what you cannot see: the cups, the gusset, the seam allowance at the straps. Press the fabric to the back of your hand. If it feels cool there, there is still water in it. Heat is not the shortcut — a radiator dries a suit quickly and costs you elastane doing it.
Fold it, do not hang it
A hanger puts a small constant load on the straps and shoulder seams, and the entire point of elastane is that it responds to load. Over a weekend that is nothing. Over nine months, fibre held under tension gradually stops returning to its original length, and the straps come out longer than they went in — which reads as a suit that has stopped holding. Fold loosely in thirds instead of sharp halves, and keep a hard crease out of any front panel that is doing compression work. For a moulded or structured cup, nest the cups into one another or lay the piece flat rather than folding across them. A dented cup can take a season to forget the dent.
A suit in storage is not resting. It is holding the position you left it in, for most of a year.
The drawer is part of the method
Heat, light and still damp air are what to store away from, and most homes offer all three somewhere convenient. An attic swings between extremes, a car boot cooks, an airing cupboard is warm by design, and a sunny shelf will fade the exposed edge of a folded suit over a winter. What you want is dull, dry and stable: a drawer or closed box in a room you actually live in. Keep it breathable rather than airtight: a sealed plastic bag holds in any moisture you missed and gives mildew somewhere private to work. Clothes moths prefer protein fibres like wool to nylon, so that hazard you can mostly set aside. Mildew is the real one.
- 01Rinse after the final swim, then hand-wash in cool water with a mild detergent.
- 02Lift any sunscreen or oil mark before storing, not next spring.
- 03Dry flat in the shade for a day or two, then check cups, gusset and seams for damp.
- 04Fold loosely in thirds and never hang a suit for the off-season.
- 05Nest moulded cups rather than folding across them.
- 06Store in a drawer or a cotton bag, away from heat, sunlight and sealed plastic.
- 07Keep bikini tops and bottoms folded together so June does not begin with a search.
Opening the drawer in June
Take it out before the trip rather than on it. Unfold it, give it a few hours flat to let the fold lines settle, then step into it in daylight and move. Creases relax out of a good knit on their own; what you are looking for is slack where there used to be hold, at the straps and the back elastic especially. Finding that in May is an inconvenience. Finding it on a beach in July is the other thing. Fabric quality buys margin rather than immunity: our double-lined sculpting Italian jersey, woven at a mill on Lake Como, is chlorine and UV resistant, so colour and fibre start the winter in better shape than a thin single-layer suit. The double lining also takes longer to dry, which is the one place a dense fabric asks more of you, not less. Give it the extra day.