Swimsuits at Zimmermann and Malia Mills Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Top, women's swimsuits at Zimmermann's shop in SoHo. Bottom, Malia Mills's in NoLIta. THERE are few expeditions that strike as much terror in women's hearts as shopping for a bathing suit - or so one of the biggest clichés of retail holds. Ohmygod, those fluorescent lights, highlighting our every dimple and wrinkle! Another round of cosmopolitans, sister girlfriends! I actually think this is an anti-feminist conspiracy about 20 years old, harking back to the era of "Backlash," the Mall of America and step aerobics. Now that most of us surf the Web with more vigor than the Pacific, shopping for a bathing suit has become thoroughly mundane, even relaxing. You can order hundreds of tops and bottoms (manufacturers having at last grasped that few women's upper halves exactly match their lower) and try them on in the privacy of your own bedroom with only Fluffy the cat in apathetic attendance. A vogue for retro swimwear, nudged along by the Jantzen Vamp and the miraculously ageless designer Norma Kamali, has also improved the situation. As has the tankini. Oblivious or indifferent to these tectonic shifts in the industry, the Australian company Zimmermann boldly set up an old-school swimsuit shop in SoHo in March. I have never been to Australia but (while we're trafficking in clichés) imagine it as a kind of unpolluted mirror world populated by exotic fish and extremely tall, good-humored people. This was not contradicted by my visit to the store, where I was welcomed cheerfully by a tanned Olivia Wilde doppelgänger. Zimmermann stocks a few ready-to-wear items, like the translucent floral chiffon frock my greeter had on, but its specialty is teeny-weeny suits that are not for the meek or mushy-stomached. The Pucci-inspired Rhapsody maillot had a fetching twist neck ($240) but little in the way of support. The odd frills on the top of the Dreamer zebra-patterned bikini gave the bust area the appearance of two small cabbages. I liked the cut of a more basic striped, strapless bandeau, but the otherwise obliging "Olivia" proved elusive at the precise moment I struggled to fasten the clasp. Fortunately, the company also makes big, billowing numbers like the Rebel ($475), a V-necked ocelot-print caftan with slits to the hip that conjured a postpartum Angelina Jolie gamboling on a Mombasa beach, and the Rebellion ($295, down from $420), whose lavender tassel belt had a curiously medieval look. Another sales sylph, a blonde in an eyelet playsuit, was ringing up one of these as someone's man-friend sat in a nearby chair, inspecting the clientele. Like a modern-day White Rabbit, he was wearing an enormous orange watch, but didn't seem to be in any particular hurry. A FEW dunes over in NoLIta, meanwhile, at that old swimsuit stalwart Malia Mills, one gets the impression that any testosterone managing to seep over the threshold would vaporize into the ether, diffused by the whirring Dyson Air Multiplier that stands sternly in the corner. Despite her luscious initials, Ms. Mills is kind of the Germaine Greer of swimwear designers, enjoining women to "love thy differences" (her models tend toward tattoos, or even dirty feet) and preferring matte shades of puce, gray and forest that lend even the skimpiest of her pieces an aura more camouflage than bombshell. She is renowned in particular for her low leg lines, which obviate the de rigueur but widely loathed Brazilian wax, and her high-waisted bottoms. Perhaps the extra yardage on these items is what accounts for the sticker shock (around $300 to $400) of these subtle suits, which are "lovingly made in the U.S.A." rather than flung down on an assembly line by angry underpaid foreigners, and issued, as brassieres are, by cup size, rather than in the euphemistic zero to 3 of Zimmermann. There is some wiggle room here - Bs share styles with Cs, and so on - and an aversion to obvious underwire for all but the most voluptuous. As Jessica, the saleswoman in attendance, handed me a beribboned, mud-colored Delilah top ($165), advising me to "just play with it," I felt myself welcomed, if only temporarily, into a moneyed, knowing sewing circle that would never consider foam pads, tanning booths or posting a self-portrait on social media to tempt a wayward congressman. With its billowing panels, soft aubergine carpet and that whirring fan, the dressing room was more of a womb; far from immolating with self-hatred, I wanted to curl up and take a nap. But there is something a little Emperor's New Clothes about Ms. Mills's strenuously affirming company ethos. By maintaining that women are beautiful no matter what they have on, she cleverly has her devotees standing a little taller and looking a little better, even when they are basically naked. Zimmermann, 87 Mercer Street, (212) 226-6440; zimmermannwear.com. Malia Mills, 199 Mulberry Street, (212) 625-2311; maliamills.com.