Most women loathe swimsuits. Gillian Gabriel of Bloomington did something about it.

Gabriel, an executive recruiter for the advertising and marketing industry, found herself without many job search requests as the recession hit. So, she began searching for fabrics and elastic instead and spent a year developing the swimsuit of her dreams: a one-piece halter-top with ample rear coverage, cut high enough on the leg to flatter without exposing too much, supportive without being so tight as to produce bulges in all the wrong places.

"The stomach is a universal problem," Gabriel says. "I'm not a very big person, but every suit I put on, the fabric was just too tight."

Gigi is 87 percent nylon, 13 percent spandex and made with three kinds of elastic to flatter without feeling like a girdle. It comes in black, brown, pink and white and sells for $98 only at gigilovesyou.com.

— Allison Kaplan