From New York Magazine’s The Cut (because, seriously, they dig up all the best beauty talk):

British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman: “I defy anyone claiming there should be an age limit on bikini wearing. Certainly with the loss of muscle tone and wear and tear that women’s bodies suffer as time passes, the bikini becomes an increasingly difficult option the older we become. But as in so many things, the divide between one-piece and bikini wearers is less to do with age than attitude.”

So your age is not the issue. Phew! All we really care about is how skinny and toned you might be… got it? Isn’t that sooo generous? If you can have the body of a sixteen-year-old at 50, then you have nothing to worry about!

Ahem.

For an example of someone actually rocking her bikini with all the right attitude, check out the wonderful Samantha over at Bikini Birthday, a blog she started a year ago to help her reach her goal of wearing a bikini in public for the first time ever on her 25th birthday. And today, she did it!

Samantha says:

I’ll never look in the mirror and see a swimsuit model. …and yet slowly I’ve been seeing beauty. […] So here I am not perfect, not tanned, not Amanda Brandao. I am 25 years old. I am beautiful. I am happy. I am me.

Wheee! Take that “loss of muscle tone” and “wear and tear.” What are you, an apartment trying to get its security deposit back?

So if you’ve got a bikini (or other item of clothing that you’ve convinced yourself you are too old or too fat or too whatever to wear), well, why don’t you just go do that already?

[Photo: “Exercising on the Beach” in all manner of silly swimwear circa 1935, via Flickr.]