Swimwear Fashion Design: Where Fit and Marketing Matter

By Candice Mancini
Fashion Design School Review Columnist

If nowhere else in fashion design, fit counts when it comes to swimwear. Marketing, however, is also important with this segment of fashion design industry. After all, even start-up fashion lines can have a great websites.

Swimwear Design Basics

Creating swimwear is both art and science. Unlike with most other designs, swimwear must be durable enough to withstand exposure to water, salt, and chlorine, and functional enough to stay put for lounging, exercise, and play. Many fashion schools offer classes in swimsuit fashion design, where students can learn about:

• Working with synthetics
• Basic anatomy
• Color durability
• Swimwear design terms

After Fashion School

Once you graduate from fashion school, try to find a job as an assistant to a swimwear designer. Here, you may be able to refine what you learned in fashion school while gaining hands-on paid experience.

It will take time and money to begin your own line, but if you get there, you’ll need to decide what fashion designs to work with. A few successful fashion designers focus exclusively on swimwear. Lana Ford, for example, created her own line in 2005, after finding herself ill-suited to much of the swimwear then sold in stores. RYGY also offers swimwear, while Letarte designs swimwear, sportswear, and cover-ups (including beautiful cotton tops, skirts, and dresses).

Swimwear Marketing

If you want to start your own fashion line, correctly marketing your designs will be essential. Of course, if you’re just starting out, you probably won’t have the budget for high-priced models and exotic-destination shoots, but you can still have a great website. Your swimwear website should include:

• A good return policy
• bikini tops/bottoms sold separately
• sizing charts

Virtual models can be even more effective than a sizing chart for online shoppers. Lands’ End offers this feature, allowing each shopper to match swimsuit to their body type, face shape, hair color, and skin tone. Of course, marketing and fit matters when designing swimwear. However, as Lana Ford’s example shows, one of the most important rules of fashion design is to design what you’d want to wear.

About the Author

Candice Mancini is a writer and teacher with an unusual fashion sense that drives her to create her own clothing and recreate perfectly-good ready-made clothing. She has an M.A. in Education and a B.A. in English and history.

Source(s)

Lana Ford Swimwear
“Lands’ End Brings Virtual Swimsuits to the Net,” Ecommerce Times
RYGY Swimwear

Posted on August 6, 2007 at 03:54 PM