We need to tell you something that we've never said out loud to anyone except each other.

We both stopped swimming in 2019.

Not because we didn't love it. We've always loved the water. We grew up on the coast, spent every summer at the beach, taught our kids to swim before they could walk. The ocean has always been our place.

But somewhere around 55, we started dreading it. Not the water. The getting-ready part. The standing in front of the mirror in a swimsuit and not recognising the woman looking back at us.

We tried everything. We bought the "flattering" black one-piece that every magazine recommends. We tried the swimsuit with the ruching that's supposed to "disguise your problem areas", as if our bodies were a problem that needed disguising. One of us bought a beautiful bikini in a moment of defiance and then never wore it.

Eventually, we just... stopped going.

Our grandchildren would ask us to come to the pool and we'd say we had a headache. We skipped the beach holiday we'd done every January for twenty years. We told ourselves we didn't mind. We were lying.

"We didn't want to 'fix' our bodies. We wanted swimwear that didn't make us feel like our bodies needed fixing."

The moment that changed everything was stupidly ordinary.

We were at a department store, standing in the swimwear section, watching a woman about our age hold up a one-piece, look at it, and put it back. Then she picked up another one. Put it back. Then she just walked away.

We wanted to run after her and say, "Me too."

That night we started sketching. We're not fashion designers. We have no training in this. We were just angry enough to try. We kept thinking: what if someone made a swimsuit that started with the question "What do women actually need?" instead of "What can we sell?"

So we made a list. Not of features. Of feelings.

A one-piece couldn't do all of that. A bikini couldn't either. But something in between could.

We spent four months on the design. We went through eleven prototypes, and our friends were our test group. Wonderful, brutally honest women in their fifties, sixties and seventies who told us exactly what worked and what didn't.

Here's what we figured out:

The top needed to be longer than a normal swim top. Not cropped at the waist, because that's where most women carry weight and that's exactly where they don't want a hemline drawing attention. Our top falls to mid-hip, so it drapes over the tummy and covers without clinging.

It had to be two separate pieces, so getting it on and off would never be a struggle, wet or dry.

The fabric had to be substantial. Not see-through when wet, not paper-thin, but not so heavy that it felt like wearing a wetsuit. We found a double-lined fabric that holds its shape wash after wash.

No compression panels. We cannot stress this enough. Every "tummy control" swimsuit we'd ever worn left red marks on our skin and made us feel like we were being punished for having a body. Our coverage comes from draping, not squeezing.

And it had to look beautiful. Not "flattering for your age." Not "slimming." Beautiful. Something you'd choose even if you had nothing to hide.

That's how the tankini collection was born.

People always ask us what makes our tankinis different from the ones you find at Target or online. We could give you a list of features, but we think it's simpler than that.

Most swimwear is designed by people who assume you want to hide. So they add panels and boning and thick elastic and dark colours, and the result is something that holds you in but makes you feel terrible.

We designed ours assuming you want to feel like yourself. That's a completely different starting point, and it changes everything.

The top is loose through the middle, so it skims over your tummy instead of pressing against it. You can feel the difference in the first five seconds. There's no "suck in" moment.

The high-waisted bottom sits comfortably above the navel without digging in. No elastic cutting into soft skin. No muffin-top effect. Just a smooth, clean line.

And because it's two pieces (this is the thing our customers email us about more than anything else), you can go to the bathroom like a normal human being. Pull down the bottom, done. No peeling off a wet one-piece in a public toilet cubicle while trying not to let it touch the floor. Every woman over 50 knows that struggle. We fixed it.

We make them in sizes 8 to 26, and yes, the plus-size range is exactly the same design, not a lesser version with fewer colour options. That was non-negotiable from day one.

We want to share something with you. These are real emails from real customers. We have their permission, and we've kept their words exactly as they wrote them, because they say it better than we ever could.

"I want you to know that I swam with my grandchildren for the first time in four years last Sunday. I know that probably sounds dramatic for a piece of swimwear, but I'm sitting here crying as I type this. Thank you for making something for women like me."

Margaret, 64, Brisbane

"I showed my swim group your website and told them about the tankini. Four of us ordered. All different sizes, all different shapes. Every single one of us is happy. That has literally never happened with any swimwear brand."

Roslyn, 63, Cairns

We get emails like these every week. Every single one makes us cry. Not because we built a successful business, but because we know exactly how these women feel, because we were two of them.

"Plus-size women don't need a 'special' section. They need the same beautiful swimwear in their actual size."

We need to say something directly to every plus-size woman reading this.

You are not an afterthought.

In most swimwear brands, the plus-size range is a handful of styles in black and navy, hidden on a separate page, made from different (cheaper) fabric, and designed with the assumption that all you want is to cover up.

That made us furious, so we did it differently.

Every single design in our collection is available from size 8 to size 26. The same colours. The same quality. The same fabric. The same care.

Because a size 22 woman deserves a coral-pink tankini just as much as a size 10 woman does. And she shouldn't have to settle for black because that's all that comes in her size.

Our bestselling sizes are 16 to 22. That's not a footnote. That's our core customer. We design for her first.

We swam last Tuesday.

Nothing dramatic. Just the local pool, just forty-five minutes, just the two of us and the water. We wore tankinis from our new collection because we wanted to see how the colours looked in real light.

They looked beautiful. And we felt like ourselves.

That's all we ever wanted. For us and for you.

If you've read this far (and thank you for reading, truly), we want you to know that we understand. We understand the mirror moment, and the sarong, and the "maybe later" when someone asks you to get in the water. We've lived all of it.

And we promise you: there's a tankini in this collection that will make you feel the way we felt last Tuesday. Not perfect. Not twenty years younger. Just... yourself. In the water. Where you belong.

With love,
Lily & Grace Founders, Lily & Grace