This Is the Best Underwear to Wear in the Summer

Pattern, Text, Font, Visual arts, Motif, Design, Silver, Creative arts,

(Image credit: Design by Katja Cho)

last updated 21 August 2021

Is it too early now to say sorry? Because I really wanted to show you a highly relevant Instagram—which should have been easy enough to find because that whole landscape has become so homogenous lately—but I could *not* for the life of me find it. It's a pic of a girl's butt clad in the most perfect, prettiest, sheer shimmery underwear. Use your imagination.

Whatever the underwear was, it'd probably still be inferior to The Best Summer Underwear Ever, brought to you by trial and error and a customarily sticky, drippy, intolerable New York City summer. The test subject? Me. The criteria? Having them on my body and not feeling like my nether regions are being confit-ed. The verdict? Cosabella's lace thongs (opens in new tab) are life.

I know what you're thinking: "Chelsea. A thong? But who'd want to wear butt floss IN 80-DEGREE-PLUS, HIGH-HUMIDITY WEATHER?" I would, actually, because 1) any more fabric and it gets bunchy under dresses and 2) somehow, the back bit on these stays suspended in just the right position, if you know what I mean. Throw in sheer, highly breathable fabric (ooo that *breeze*) and crazy-cute prints (I'm especially partial to those from the brand's Paul & Joe collaboration (opens in new tab)), and you've got a winner. Ideal Instagram knickers who?

Pattern, Red, White, Line, Symmetry, Creative arts, Pattern, Swim brief,

Low-rider thong, $27, cosabella.com (opens in new tab); printed one-size-fits-all thong, $23.50, cosabella.com (opens in new tab).

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Chelsea Peng is a writer and editor who was formerly the assistant editor at MarieClaire.com. She's also worked for The Strategist and Refinery29, and is a graduate of Northwestern University. On her tombstone, she would like a GIF of herself that's better than the one that already exists on the Internet and a free fro-yo machine. Besides frozen dairy products, she's into pirates, carbs, Balzac, and snacking so hard she has to go lie down.