Body Glove Women's Fashion Brand

Body Glove was founded in 1953 by twin brothers Bill and Bob Meistrell. In its modern form, Body Glove IP Holdings LP is a surf, dive, wake and outdoor water sports brand started in the United States. The brand is built on an invention story: the brothers are often credited with inventing the first practical wetsuit in the early 1950s, in the back of their Redondo Beach shop. A practical wetsuit - one ordinary surfers and divers could actually buy and wear - changed who could stay in cold water, and how long they could stay there.

For women, that heritage frames the range: wetsuits and water-sports apparel engineered from the same neoprene knowledge, extended into swimwear and beach-adjacent clothing. This page treats the women's range the way the brand treats its products - as equipment first. Fit, thickness, seams and materials are the fashion here, because in the water they are what comfort, warmth and safety are actually made of.

Wetsuits: The Original Product, Bought Properly

A wetsuit works by trapping a thin layer of water against the skin, which the body warms; everything about buying one follows from that physics. Thickness is stated in millimetres, torso first - a 3/2mm suit (3mm through the body, 2mm in the limbs) is the temperate-water standard, with thinner suits for warm water and thicker, hooded suits for cold. The right thickness for your water matters more than any feature list: too thin and you are cold, too thick and you tire fighting the suit's resistance with every paddle and stroke.

Fit should be snug everywhere with no air pockets - especially at the lower back, neck and wrists, where flushing cold water enters - while still letting you breathe deeply and swing your arms fully. Seams divide into flatlock (comfortable, warm-water) and sealed or taped constructions (warmer, pricier, cold-water). A women's cut matters here beyond marketing: proportions at bust, waist, hip and limb length decide whether a suit seals or flushes, which is why trying a women's-specific suit, in two sizes where possible, beats buying a smaller men's pattern every time.

Swimwear, Rash Guards and Care

The wider women's range follows the same equipment logic. Rash guards earn their place as sun and abrasion protection under a wetsuit or over swimwear; swim pieces meant for actual surf must pass the same stay-put tests as any performance swimwear - straps that hold through a duck dive, fastenings that neither dig nor drift. Look at fabric weight and seam finish the way you would on the wetsuit rail, because the brand's credibility comes from the water side of the shop, not the postcard side.

Care decides whether neoprene lasts seasons or cracks in one. Rinse every suit in fresh cool water after use, turn it inside out to dry in shade - UV is neoprene's slow enemy - and hang it on a wide hanger by the waist rather than by the shoulders, whose foam stretches under the suit's own wet weight. Never machine-wash, never tumble-dry, never leave a suit wadded in a hot car. The Meistrell brothers built a brand on making cold water comfortable in 1953; an hour of rinsing and shade is a small rent to pay for the invention.

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