We met in 1994 at the Kew Recreation Centre in Melbourne.

We were both swimming instructors — Lily in the mornings, Grace in the afternoons. We’d overlap during the lunchtime lap sessions, sitting on the plastic chairs by the deep end, eating sandwiches out of Tupperware and talking about everything.

We talked about the kids we taught. About the older women in the aqua aerobics classes who apologised for how they looked in their swimsuits — every single session. About our own bodies, which were already changing in ways we hadn’t expected at 35.

We talked about how strange it was that swimwear — something so many women need — was designed as if most women didn’t exist. Too skimpy. Too tight. Too small. And if you weren’t a size 10, your options were a black one-piece or a black one-piece.

We didn’t know it then, but those conversations at the deep end of a council swimming pool would change both our lives.

It was a Thursday night, late, sometime in 1996. We were driving home from work together — we always carpooled on Thursdays. Grace was driving. Lily was half asleep in the passenger seat.

And there it was. A small boutique on a quiet street, lights still on inside, with a handwritten “For Sale” sign in the window.

Grace slowed down. Lily sat up.

We didn’t say anything for about ten seconds. Then Lily said: “We should buy that.” And Grace said: “I know.”

Six weeks later, Lily & Grace opened its doors.

We had no business plan. No retail experience. No funding beyond what we’d saved from years of teaching swimming. What we had was a very clear idea of what we wanted to make: swimwear for women who’d been ignored by every other swimwear brand. Women over 40. Women over 50. Women in sizes the industry pretended didn’t exist. Women who loved the water but had stopped getting in it.

Women like us.

The tankini wasn’t our idea from the start. In the early years, we sold one-pieces. Nice ones — better than what the department stores had — but still one-pieces.

It was our customers who taught us.

They’d come into the shop and try things on and say the same things, over and over:

“I love it, but I can’t get to the bathroom in this.”
“It fits my top but not my bottom. Or my bottom but not my top.”
“I just wish there was something that covered my tummy without squeezing it.”

So we started experimenting. We worked with a local seamstress — June, bless her — and we prototyped what we called “the in-between.” Longer than a bikini top, separate from the bottom, loose enough to drape but structured enough to stay put.

The first woman who tried it on — a regular named Barbara, size 18, hadn’t swum in three years — looked in the mirror and started crying.

That’s when we knew.

We’ve sold thousands of tankinis since then. They’ve become our signature, the thing Lily & Grace is known for. Every single one is designed by two women who spent their twenties and thirties standing at the edge of a pool watching other women struggle with swimwear that wasn’t made for them.

Every single one starts with the same question we’ve been asking since 1994: “Would WE feel good wearing this?”

What We Put Into Every Tankini

People ask us what makes our tankinis different. After thirty years, we’ve boiled it down to five things we never compromise on:

We’re both 65 now.

It’s strange to write that. In our heads we’re still the two women eating sandwiches by the deep end, complaining about swimwear and dreaming about something better.

But our bodies know the truth. Thirty years of early mornings. Thirty years of standing on our feet in the shop. Long, beautiful days followed by quiet afternoons where we’d sit behind the counter and listen to the radio and wait for the bell above the door to ring.

We’ve loved every minute of it. But it’s time.

We’re retiring.

The boutique will close at the end of summer. The website will follow. And then Lily & Grace — the little shop two swimming instructors built because a “For Sale” sign caught their eye on a Thursday night — will be a memory.

But before we go, we want to do one last thing.

Our Farewell Sale

We’re putting our entire bestselling collection on sale one final time. Every tankini, every bikini, every piece we’ve ever been proud of — at prices we’ve never offered before.

This isn’t a marketing trick. There’s no “last chance, act now” countdown timer. We’re simply two women clearing the shelves of a shop we’ve loved for thirty years, and we’d rather our swimwear ends up on real women at real beaches than in a warehouse somewhere.

Once it’s gone, it’s gone. We won’t be restocking. We won’t be reopening. This is genuinely the last time you’ll be able to buy Lily & Grace.