Meg Bisese, owner of Meg's Swimwear, center, helps customers at Meg's Swimwear in Virginia Beach, Va., on Friday, August 13, 2021. (Kristen Zeis/The Virginian-Pilot)

Virginia Beach — It’s a tricky gig telling someone the truth about how they look while they’re standing in front of you in a bathing suit.

But Meg Bisese was able to pull off an honest approach for decades, and customers of her Oceanfront boutique, Meg’s Swimwear, trusted her opinion so much that they kept coming back for more.

Soon, they’ll have to find another place to shop.

Bisese, 67, is ready to retire and will close the store at the end of September. She’s sad to say goodbye to her 45-year-old business but is looking forward to riding off into the sunset.

“Nobody would have done this for this many years if they didn’t love it,” she said.

In 1976, Bisese became a seamstress at Boots Daugherty’s Bikini Hut on 22nd Street, sewing custom-made bathing suits. She had loved to sew since she was a child, and made Barbie doll clothes and her own outfits. She even had a stint creating wedding dresses but became overwhelmed with their size and texture.

“I liked bathing suits because they were small,” she said. “I felt an affinity for the fabric.”

At that time, two-piece swimsuits were sold as sets. The top and the bottom were the same size and had to be purchased together. But Meg’s Custom Swimwear, as it was called then, offered the option of a personalized fit for a variety of body shapes.

Some younger women needed large tops and small bottoms. Others wanted skirted suits that were “contemporary, not old lady,” Bisese said.

Bisese quickly became the go-to person for locals at the start of the summer season. She also became well-known to contestants in the Miss America pageant, selling to women all over the East Coast. In 1986, Miss Virginia wore one of Bisese’s white one-piece creations in the swimsuit competition.

In 1993, Bisese opened Meg’s Swimwear on Laskin Road, a couple of blocks from the beach. She later expanded the retail side of her shop, taking over a space next door. She had three seamstresses helping her and would work at home after hours cutting out patterns.

“We were so busy,” Bisese said. “I would put in God-awful days.”

About 10 years ago, she stopped the custom-made operation to focus on selling bathing suits, cover-ups, dresses, handbags, shoes, jewelry and other unique items she and her husband, Mickey, select each year from the New York market.

Her reputation for offering a candid opinion outside the dressing room had solidified, and Virginia Beach residents and tourists relied on her store for their summer apparel.

“Meg would find the bathing suits that would work and make it really simple and be very honest about what works and what doesn’t,” said Mary Gentry, who has shopped at Meg’s since the 1990s. “Her whole approach was there’s a bathing suit for everybody.”

It wasn’t always easy dealing with the finnicky, vulnerable aspects that come with shopping for swimwear.

“Everybody’s a little crazy about bathing suits,” Bisese said. “Maybe that’s why I liked it. It was always a challenge.”

She had a knack for quickly sizing up a customer when they came through the door and pulling a suit from the rack that worked.

“I like to find the right thing for the right person and to make them feel their best,” Bisese said. “I tell people what actually looks good on them, not just to make a sale.”

Meg Bisese, owner of Meg's Swimwear, puts away swimsuits at her shop in Virginia Beach on Friday, Aug. 13, 2021. (Kristen Zeis/The Virginian-Pilot)

Meg’s Swimwear was able to stay open throughout the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, but when Bisese started buying merchandise for this year, she decided she wanted to retire.

“COVID just made it easier for me to say, ‘Enough is enough’,” she said.

Bisese is excited about having more time to cook, read and travel across country with her husband on their Harley Davidson motorcycle.

“That’s the one adventurous thing I do,” she said.

Longtime customers like Kim Hundley are going to miss her.

“Her shop has a niche, a uniqueness that has to do with Meg,” Hundley said. “I don’t think anybody else gets it like she does.”

Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125, stacy.parker@pilotonline.com