The Islamic Swimsuit

Hei, what do you know? An Islamic swimsuit. This is designed by a Turkish and was described by Western media as a throwback to the type of swimwear before the advent of the one piece of swimwear where a swimmer was actually arrested in 1907 for showing her arms, legs and neck. This Islamic swimsuit looks more like body hugging very colourful tracksuits. More than 40,000 swimsuits were sold last year for about US$97 each.

Will we see this on Brunei beaches?

I have to admit that I don't go to the Brunei beaches that much. My experiences tend to be limited to the odd holidays that I take at the Empire and so may not count. But from my extremely limited experiences, I can see that the two piece bikinis are the more common form of beachwear for non-Bruneian ladies though Bruneian ladies I noticed seemed to prefer the one piece swimsuit. Though I also noticed a great many jumped into the water with their t-shirts and sweat pants, so I guess there are still many who are modest enough not to wear swimsuits. I have a friend who said this is because many (his words not mine) Brunei ladies tend to be generously shaped. I will not go into that unless I like to see my comment boxes filled up with indignant comments.

Interestingly enough even when the bikini (named after the Bikini Atolls where the Americans did their atomic bomb practises) was first introduced in 1946, the Vatican continued to ban it from being worn in Catholic countries until as recently as 1967. Even in 1906, European ladies were still very modest in their swimwear. It wasn't until the revolution of the 1960s and 1970s did the wearing of bikinis became the norm in Western beaches. Today fears over skin cancer as well as the changing use of the beach as a place for sport, rather than for tanning, means being too tanned is no longer considered chic and that covered up is so much better health wise.

One writer wrote recently, I can't remember whether on HYS or Borneo Bulletin about the need to have separate beaches for ladies and men. It does beg the question how far do we want to go with the MIB concept. Today the beaches, tomorrow? The British civil service has a term for it - the thin edge of the wedge. Once the thin end goes in, the whole wedge may go in as well.

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I was trawling around technorati just to find out who else has been linking to this site when I stumbled that this site has been nominated for the Best 'Rest of Asia' Blog category by the The Asia Blog Awards for Q1 of 2006/2007 (the final awards only in 2007). Out of the seven sites, four are from Brunei and with the exception of liviesh.org, the other 2 Bruneians are already included in my list of better brunei bloggers. The other three are from East Timor, Mongolia and Central Asia (but written by an American).

Nominees for Best 'Rest of Asia' Blog Category Q1 2006/2007:

• Brunei Resources (Brunei)


• Dili-gence (East Timor)


• Livieish.org (Brunei)


• Neweurasia Mongolia (Mongolia)


• Our Local Style (Brunei)


• Registan.net (Central Asia)


• Turquoise and Roses (Brunei)

As for me, I am quite surprised that this blogsite which started nothing more than as a place for me to tell everyone about what new materials I have put up on my main website www.bruneiresources.com have now become a site of its own rights rivalling my main website. I have to thank both LSM and Maurina who encouraged me to move to blogspot from spaces and to Ranz for the first major plug which moved this blogsite into a different orbit altogether. As Maurina says 'vote for her' but she says if you can't, then vote for all the other Brunei sites. I am not saying vote for me (the voting closes already) but we have to admire that 4 out of those 7 are Bruneians. So for all Brunei bloggers out there, this is only Q1 and there are 3 more Qs to go through. So the field is still wide open for everyone to participate and make Brunei proud.