With all of my dressing techniques I am endeavoring to cover and disguise my bag as much as humanly possible, paradoxically, the opposite to that is what I wear for beach holidays and swimming. It is without a doubt one of the biggest challenges I have found as a bag user, but as with any other occasion wear I just have to think smarter. Its not that I'm an exhibitionist, for one I don't consider wearing a bikini at the beach exhibitionism. That said with age and life experience I have become happy in my skin, even with its added extras, both in pounds and bags.
On my holidays I want as all over tan as I can possibly manage. Therefore my bag will be on show, I use as small a bag as I can get away with, (I use the smallest drain-able ones available which means I can just pop back to my room as needed). In the past I've used neonatal drain-able bags which were tiny but the filter wasn't great (not for out and about use but fantastic for tan lines!).
What to wear on my first holiday after my op was a real dilemma, mainly because I was only 6 months into having the bag. I was beyond self conscious but still I wanted an all over tan. My husband bought me some fabulous swimming costumes from Rigby and Peller, in the hope that it'd make me feel more confident about being half naked in public. They have ruching all over the front and they worked a treat and made me feel very confident. However once I got to Cuba I soon realized that no one would be taking a blind bit of notice of me no matter what I was wearing, lets face it unless you're going on holiday to the Playboy mansion its hardly likely that anyone else's body is going to be anything to write home about. So I wore bikinis and sarongs everyday. Now If I'm at a resort round the pool or on the beach I will wear a bikini and take a sarong for a little modesty whilst walking around, but in all honesty I'd do that stoma or not.
These days though I tend to go on private villa holidays, we only holiday with friends and family so I don't to use sarongs as there's no one but us there, meaning I get a cracking tan!
In my local swimming pool, hotel trips or on spa breaks I will use my ruched one piece swimsuits and wear a very large bag just to buy me time with the adhesive and filter. I'd possibly wear a sarong too if I feel I needed it.
Here's little trick I developed on the beach; since having my stoma front sleeping or front laying is a no no (which is a pain when you need to tan your back half) so on the beach before I lay my towel down I measure where I will be laying, then dig I a little hole in the sand that will line up with my bag, then lay the towel on top and press it into the dip a little, hey presto front bathing with a free flowing stoma and no risk of leaks! (I adjusted a sun lounger cushion for home using the similar principle, cutting a hole and restitching.)
Top bikini M&S , left bikini from Tesco, sarong M&S, right bikini Tesco