Empowered to Beach

Abstract

The tween years for girls can be both an exciting and intimidating time in which significant body changes occur and appearance becomes more important. This makes attaining clothing that they feel confident in challenging as so much of girls’ clothing emphasizing these now developing sexualized body parts (Goodin, Van Denburg, Murnen, & Smolak, 2011; Wood, 1994). This can bring about attention from others that they are not emotionally ready to receive especially with swimwear. Empowered to Beach explores the needs and desire of tween girls swimwear through a user-centered design approach. Utilizing the previously identified five stages (Sanders, 2002; Watkins & Dunn, 2015) a swimsuit was developed that incorporated functional and aesthetic design to create an age-appropriate empowering swimsuit that fosters confidence and independence.