Jamaican Fashion Designer – Custom Swimwear by Solaris

I’m in a bikini! Ha! I’m stylin’ too. Can’t touch this *does the hammer dance*

The last time I was in a bikini I was soooooo self-conscious. And I was smaller than I am now too. But I love me so much more right now I’m like, if you don’t like what you see you better look away cause that ain’t my problem!

So time and time again as a fashion blogger people ask me for fashion advice. One of the ever popular questions? Where to get swimsuits in Jamaica, especially for the plus size body. I honestly didn’t know where to send these people so I did what everybody else would do. I asked twitter.

One such time, a friend of Jamaican fashion designer Jodi Swack mentioned to me that Jodi may be able to help. I reached out to her and it turned out she knew of and was an avid reader of my blog! I thought that was so cool. I asked her if she had anything in stock that I could feature on my blog but she said that she makes most of her plus size swimsuits custom so that it fits the body right. She graciously offered to make one for me and I was really excited!

I immediately thought I would get a monokini cause it’s safe for a body type like mine. But I already have a mono and even though I do need another, I already knew how it would look on me and wanted to venture out in a different kind of design. The next best safe design I could think of was a high-waist, vintage-inspired cut that would conceal the stretch marks and the work-in-progress tummy. Jodi quickly drew something up based on that and I could see that she really had this design thing down! She suggested the colour red for me and I never back away from colours so I loved it. I’m not sure I’m crazy about the top, it’s hard to find something that can truly hold these puppies in but overall I love my new swimsuit.

I had a quick chat with Jodi and her mom Christene who actually puts the pieces together, here’s what they had to say:

1. How long have you been designing swimwear?

We have been designing since 2006, however Solaris Swimwear officially started in the summer of 2007 . The idea first came around when my mother and I were shopping for bikinis for a trip I had the following morning. We spent the whole day in the blistering heat running around trying to find a good looking swimsuit that fit my body (I have a larger top than bottom) but failed miserably. Desperate, I realised that mom, a dressmaker of over 30+ years was standing beside me! I decided to annoy her to make one for me ( she had never even had the notion to make one before),my logic was, if she could sew a wedding dress, why not a swimsuit? So we went to the fabric store picked out a beautiful piece of fabric and I went home and sketched the swimsuit I had in mind. The rest was history, I wore the swimsuit around my friends, they loved it wanted their own and it grew from there.

2. Do you offer any ready-to-wear pieces or is it all done-to-order?

Yes, Solaris Swimwear does offer ready-to-wear pieces but currently we produce them in small quantities. Intitally we had begun with the idea of just custom-made designs archetectured around each customer’s body, however as we’ve grown, we do see the need to make available more ready-to-wear peices and we are currently working to address it.

3. What would something like mine cost?

One of our main principles of the business is to maintain affordable prices for swimsuits, we try to range our prices between $2500 to about $4000. Your swimsuit for example would cost about, $3200.00

4. What’s the vision for Solaris Swimwear? Where would you like to take the business in the next 5 years?

In 5 years, we hope to have gained a larger percentage of the beachwear market, for us this would mean making our swimsuits more accessible through multiple boutiques as well as making our designs available in tourist areas. Promoting “Buy Jamaica” is also important to us, with this in mind we are striving to produce quality swimwear that can stand out in our local markets against foreign made beachwear.

A few more pics of me in my new Solaris Swimsuit, holla at them for something custom!

Thing is, I was trying my darndest to push out my baxide so I didn’t look so damn flat but boy…..there’s no denying that I may be president of club #noassatall

Related: See more Jamaican Fashion Designers here