Betsey Johnson

On a recent Friday, the bathing-suit department at Bloomingdale’s on 59th Street was bustling. Pat Walsh, 54, a slim blonde administrative assistant from Staten Island, was inspecting a retro-inspired red polka-dot Anne Cole one-piece with thick straps and a bosom-enhancing sweetheart neckline for an impending trip to Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic. “I always think more is better,” she said. “Like, more of a swimsuit, more coverage.”

“Sometimes they all look the same to me, these suits,” she continued. “But I just thought, ‘Wow, I haven’t seen a polka-dot suit—I don’t know if I’ve ever seen one! So I’m going to try it on. I think it would be flattering to me.”

This season, swimsuit designers have pillaged the demure 1940s and 1950s and produced a barrage of modest, coy options like the polka-dot Anne Cole one-piece admired by Ms. Walsh. These are suits that channel Marilyn Monroe circa 1945, back when the leg was titillating enough and the thong was but a twinkle in some evil man’s eye. When famous women had curves that swimsuits cinched and smoothed and accentuated. When swimsuits helped things, in other words, rather than stranding a girl alone with her stomach flab like their successor, the string bikini.  read more »

“I'm a very lucky man, I get to sit with Tyra quite regularly,” British photographer and America’s Next Top Model judge Nigel Barker told the Transom, referring to divalicious ANTM hostess Tyra Banks, after Betsey Johnson celebrated 30 years in fashion at Bryant Park on Monday. “That's another thing that puts a smile on my face.”

The first thing to put a smile on Mr. Barker's face was Ms. Johnson’s beat-chick-inspired presentation, followed by a retrospective of her years in the industry.  read more »