Swimsuits for Rectangle Body Shape: How to Choose Right

You have a rectangle body shape if you have little waist definition, your hips are almost the same width as your shoulders, your bust and your butt are flattish to average, and you do not have a lot of curves. If you meet these criteria and you wanna add more curve definition to your body when donning a swimsuit (bikinis or one-piece), this post is for you. Here’s how to find the flattering swimsuits for a rectangle body

If you’re a plus size rectangle, click here instead. There’s a separate guide for plus size.

The challenge: Because of the almost similar proportion from top to bottom, your body could appear flat and straight. To some rectangle ladies, this is perfectly fine. But if you wanna accentuate and define your curves, you can do so through the cut and shape of your swimwear.

How to choose the best swimsuits for a rectangle body: Wear swimsuits that distract the eyes from focusing on the straightness of your rectangle body. Depending on your goal, you can enhance your bust, widen your hips, or slim down your waist.

All of these can be achieved by tweaking your swimsuits’ shapes, cuts, patterns, and colors. Here’s how to choose the best swimsuits for a rectangle body shape.

How to enhance the breasts.

If your goal is to add volume to your bust, you have two options:

• The first and the oldest trick in the fashion book is to enhance your cleavage by wearing push-up swimsuit tops.

• Another option is to wear voluminous tops like frilled and ruffled tops. They don’t necessarily add volume to your cleavage but they camouflage the flatness and create a contrast between your bust and waist. By enhancing your bust, your waist becomes slimmer in the process.

How to widen the hips of a rectangle body.

Enhancing your hip size by several inches will create contrast against your waist. As a result, your hips become wider while your waist becomes narrower. This effect camouflages the straightness and creates a more hourglass silhouette.

The following are the list of designs that will enhance the hips of a rectangle body.

High leg cut swimsuits

Another bonus is: they’re excellent at visually elongating the legs as they expose more of your legs. Perfect if you’re petite or in average height.

Note: All high cut swimsuits have tiny butt coverage. If you prefer a modest one, opt for the designs below instead.

Swimsuits with embellishments at the hips

How to tone your booty.

Rectangle body types tend to have flattish to average booties. If you want to give your booty that extra oomph, shop for these designs:

Cheeky bikinis

Thongs and Brazilian bikinis are the best examples. The more booty cheek you expose, the more defined your booty looks. While cheeky bikinis are not every woman’s cup of tea, wearing them bikini at least once in your life is worth a try. They’re super comfy in the water and accommodates vigorous movement.

If you want to build more confidence in wearing cheeky bikinis, read this: How to Wear Cheeky Bikini Bottoms.

Scrunched bikini

Scrunched swimsuits are best if you have booty fats that you wanna camouflage. The scrunched effect make your booty appear more toned and defined when in fact some part of it are just fats.

Unlike high cut swimsuits, you don’t necessarily have to wear them cheeky since they come in different booty coverage levels. Go for full coverage (or level 4) if you want your entire rear cheek covered.

Level 3 is your bet if you wanna reveal a little cheek but still cover 3/4 of your booty. This is perfect if you wanna tease but still leave some mystery for the imagination.

Read about the 5 different levels of bikini booty coverage here.

How to enhance the curves of a rectangle body

If enhancing your curves is your goal, avoid swimsuits that are angular and straight like straight bandeau tops. They emphasize the straightness of your body.

Instead, look for swimsuits with shapes that are the opposite of angular and straight. Like the following styles:

Triangle and balconette bikinis

Also, a triangle top covers the breasts but not to the point of concealing everything. This playfully reveals the bulk of the cleavage creating more interest for the eyes to focus on.

V-neck swimsuits

Like triangle bikinis, a V-neck swimsuit distracts the eyes from the straightness and creates an area of interest for the eyes to focus on.

You can also play with the depth of the plunge. The deeper the plunge, the more camouflaged your straight silhouette is.

Cut out swimsuits that mimic an hourglass

As you can see in this photo, the cut out was formed in a way that mimics a very slim waist creating the illusion that the model has a slimmer waist than she has. Add to that the tie side details that widen her hips.

What we like about this one-piece: It’s a combination of a V-neck and an hourglass cutout. Both designs compliment a rectangle figure.

Use guiding lines to sculpt your figure

Lines, when combined to form patterns can make or break your appearance in a swimsuit. Take this pattern for example:

The downward diagonal pattern in the middle creates:

• The illusion of a slimmer waist. Had the lines been plain horizontal, the model’s rectangle waist would have looked wider than it is.

• A visually elongated torso. Had it been plain colored, the model’s torso would have looked shorter and less curvy. (Although the V-neck could take care of the curve.)

• The V patterns ensure the focus to stay on the middle: Not on the shoulders and definitely not on the straightness of the waist.

Or you can combine the magic of V-neck and diagonal line in the form of a diagonal ruffled one piece.

What to wear if you’re a petite rectangle

All the designs discussed above should flatter your petite figure. But the following are the additional designs that’ll especially elongate you:

• A straight petite body has the tendency to look boyish and athletic. Balance that out by not only opting for feminine cuts (ruffles, frills, ruchings) but also wearing feminine prints like floral.

• If you want to look taller than you are, incorporate vertical lines on your swimsuit. Vertical lines elongate the body and make you appear taller than you are.

What designs to avoid

• Straight and plain bandeau only emphasizes the straightness of a rectangle body. If you are to choose a bandeau, make sure that the shape is more of a round than a straight-across rectangle.

• Rectangle boy shorts: Don’t pair any rectangle piece with a rectangle body shape. It makes everything flat and straight.

• Horizontal line: While vertical, diagonal, and curvy lines camouflage the edges of a rectangle body, horizontal lines do the opposite: it highlights them. If you’re supermodel tall, you can get away with it. Otherwise, avoid them if you’re average height or petite.

Colors, prints, and patterns

• A rectangle body could get away with busy floral prints and loud colors like neon. Again, you want the eyes to focus less on the straightness of the body by balancing the attention you get between your swimwear and your figure.

Celebrities with rectangle bodies

Check the Instagram of the celebrities who share your body shape and watch out for their swimsuit outfit. Their posts will provide you loads of information and sample styles. From those styles, pick what you want and own them.

Here’s the list of celebrities that have a rectangle/ straight body type:

• Cara Delevingne
• Keira Knightley
• Gwyneth Paltrow
• Cameron Diaz
• Nicole Kidman
• Natalie Portman
• Gwen Stefani