Rio de Janeiro Take-Homes: Brazilian Bikinis. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Copyright © 2022 Terence Carter / Grantourismo. All Rights Reserved.

Rio de Janeiro Take-Homes: Brazilian Bikinis

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If you only take home one souvenir from Rio de Janeiro, make it swimwear – a pair of teensy Brazilian bikinis for her, and low-waist, hip-hugging, wide-brief sunga for him.

In Ipanema, where we had our ‘home away from home’ in Rio for two weeks, there are countless swimwear shops with mannequins posing seductively in the chic store windows and plenty of voluptuous ‘live’ examples showing off the sexy Brazilian swimwear on the beach – even at the end of winter!

While many think of the tanga fio denta or ‘dental floss thong’ (no need for a description obviously) as the definitive Brazilian girl’s bikini bottom, these days women tend to wear a bikini that is generally more modest in the front and hips, but which varies in the degree of exposure of your butt – from baring it all to a piece of cloth just a tad smaller than the front so that the initial inclination of most foreign women is to wear it in the reverse!

The great thing about buying a bikini in Brazil is that the Brazilians understand that women come in all shapes and sizes so that the tops and bottoms of your bikini set are interchangeable in sizes! If you’re a 10 top and 14 bottom – as a lot of the girls in Rio are – you can mix and match to suit. And if you are a size 14 top and a 10 bottom, you can select a pair to suit that shape too.

That alone makes Rio a fabulous place to buy bikinis, and I haven’t even touched on the styles and designs. The fact that the local designs are tried and tested on the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana every day make local bikinis a brilliant souvenir. After all, Rio is not a city where shyness is a virtue… so don’t be shy now.

Brazilian Bikinis – Garota de Ipanema

There may be many more chic (and more expensive) swimwear shops in Ipanema – just stroll the main street, there are dozens – but I like Garota de Ipanema (girl from Ipanema) for three reasons. The boutique adjoins the restaurant of the same name where it’s said the legendary Tom Jobim was sitting when he was inspired to compose the famous Bossa Nova song Girl from Ipanema after seeing a beautiful blonde pass by. The shop is actually owned by the ‘Girl from Ipanema’ herself and her daughter. I’d shop here for reasons of nostalgia alone, even if she didn’t make such a gorgeous bikini! I love that they have larger sizes for foreign women, which can be difficult to find elsewhere in Rio. That’s not to say we have bigger bottoms, it’s just that we like our bikini bottoms to cover a bit of our bottom. And lastly, their bikinis are sexy, funky, and fantastically made. You can also buy a sunga for your guy, as well as beach towels and bags.
Rua Vinicius de Moraes 53

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A travel and food writer who has experienced over 70 countries and written for The Guardian, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Feast, Delicious, National Geographic Traveller, Conde Nast Traveller, Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia, DestinAsian, TIME, CNN, The Independent, The Telegraph, Sunday Times Travel Magazine, AFAR, Wanderlust, International Traveller, Get Lost, Four Seasons Magazine, Fah Thai, Sawasdee, and more, as well as authored more than 40 guidebooks for Lonely Planet, DK, Footprint, Rough Guides, Fodors, Thomas Cook, and AA Guides.

4 thoughts on “Rio de Janeiro Take-Homes: Brazilian Bikinis”

  1. Hi
    I was recently in Brazil for vacation and I bought five bikini tops from a beach vendor on Ipanema Beach. I paid $10. for each one. I love them and wanted to get some more in different colors. They had a gold clip in the middle of the top and tied up at the back. If I sent you a photo, could you find out where I can get more??? Thanks, Janie from Canada. P.S. I loved your country and the people are so friendly.

  2. Hi Janie

    Thanks for your comment, but I’m sorry to tell you we are no longer in Brazil. Indeed, it isn’t our country – we were just visiting :)

    I don’t know if you’ll find your $10 bikinis online but some of the big Brazilian bikini makers have shops online, so perhaps trying searching.

    best of luck!
    Lara

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