• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, May 14, 2009

 

For most women, buying a new swimsuit isn't exactly a day at the beach, but Lands' End has launched a new website to make her think it might be.

Called The Island, the new site (www.landsend.com/getaway) offers the sound of waves and plenty of interaction, from figuring out body types to mixing and matching different tops and bottoms, all while watching cabanas, waterfalls and dockside fashion shows. The site features four new collections: Beach Living, AquaTerra, Slenderizers and the Resort Collections.

The site also includes a sweepstakes, providing a trip for four people to spend five nights at the Crane Resort in Barbados, as well as links to social-networking sites so women can share their suit choices with friends. Lands' End, part of Sears Holding and sold exclusively at Sears stores, has long been beloved by women of a certain for being a bit of bathing suit maverick.

As with all its clothes, it offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee, and accepts returns. It was also one of the first lines to let women mix-and-match sizes on two-piece suits, and back in 2002, the company generated some buzz when it introduced a "virtual model" to its website, which let women experiment with how a given suit might look on their body type.

Still, it's shaping up to be a brutal swimsuit season. NPD Group, the Port Washington, N.Y.-based market research company, reports that in the last 12 months, sales of women's bathing suits have fallen 6.5% to $2.42 billion, from $2.58 billion in the same period a year ago.

And there's a hint that the recession has eaten its way into women's body confidence, too: Sales of two pieces are off sharply, falling 13.7% in the same time period to $578.8 million, while sales of one-piece suits fell just 3.5% $844.4 million.

As the slowdown grinds on, apparel retailers are struggling to take in the different ways women are altering their shopping habits. A new study from Retail Forward says that eight out of 10 women now say they have changed the way they shop for clothing, accessories and shoes, whether it's spending less overall (about 39%); shopping less often (37%), or buying fewer items on impulse (34%.)

And since swimsuit shopping tends to be traumatic -- one memorable study found that 68% of women dread the experience so much they would rather clean the bathroom --skipping the ordeal entirely might feel good.