Selfish Swimwear: durable and timeless swimsuits

Selfish Swimwear is the company straight out of the creative world of Naomie Caron who, since 2017, has been helping her customers find the ideal swimsuit, made from her workshop. It was while chatting with a fan of “slow fashion” that, quietly, the warmth was able to pierce the screen and invite me to slip into a unique and inventive universe.

Immerse yourself in the world of fashion

A 2011 graduate, Naomie knew she had to have her own business if she wanted to put her training in fashion design to good use. The important thing was to find your niche, which would set it apart. After a few years of creating different categories of clothing – woolens, men's clothing, evening dresses and even wedding dresses – his friend approaches him saying that she can't find a bathing suit. The creation she made for her not only satisfied her friend, but allowed other designers to confirm that her niche had been found... And that's how Selfish Swimwear was born.

Moreover, the choice of the name, how did it come about?

On first reading, it would be easy to see only the negative connotation of the word “selfish”. Quickly, however, we fully understand the meaning of the brand with the image it wishes to create. Firstly, the choice of English was made because exporting is essential in the field of fashion. One of the company's missions being to encourage body diversity, to enable women to feel good about themselves, Naomie thought of “self-care”. Then, the choice fell on "selfish", which is made up of two words reminiscent of the sea, namely salt and "fish".

A personalized service

Selfish Swimwear swimwear is sold at various outlets. Unfortunately, however, the pandemic context has turned accessibility to the points of sale with which the brand does business. “In the swimsuit, it's complex: it takes a lot of attention with the client. Some points of sale are sometimes not ready to have this commitment, so they make few sales,” the entrepreneur tells us.

On the other hand, Naomie likes to offer her personalized service: “I like to open the door for private fittings and I love to see the clients leave happy. This differentiates her from competitors and it is not impossible that this will lead the entrepreneur to open a shop with a storefront with her swimsuits. The visibility on its customers that allows the personalized fitting for Naomie is worth gold. Some customers buy a first piece and then come back to buy the complete kit in the spring, while others come back with friends.

new markets

Before attempting everything to enter overseas markets, Naomie believes that she must increase confidence in her company in the North American market. In Quebec, its objective is to reach the regions, since it sells mainly in the big cities. During a participation in a Florida swimwear show, she had quickly noticed how the markets could be different and therefore require a lot of research to integrate them. An example: prints are popular among our neighbors to the south, while in Quebec, we like solid colors more.

Online shopping has grown rapidly, which allows the entrepreneur to see that she has had many new customers. The motivation then came to create a new collection and take advantage of market opportunities. With travel down south, Naomie created more ready-to-wear, other than beachwear. There was also the "biker shorts", released in the spring, and clothing for training at home, which came to interfere greatly in households.

The designer draws a lot of inspiration from trend books in her creative process, but creates more "attenuated" pieces, because she wants her collections to remain as timeless as possible. For small businesses, it is more difficult to opt for the avant-garde without making a mistake, tells us the entrepreneur, who explains that fashions sometimes take two years to cross the ocean, from Europe to Quebec.

A responsible way to swim

Selfish Swimwear voluntarily releases only one collection per year. There is a lot of overconsumption that comes with “fast fashion”, which the entrepreneur deplores. She creates her pieces to have a durability of at least five years and reuses similar colors so that a customer can buy back only the piece she needs to replace. The nylon that is used is of very high quality and the fittings made of 22 carat gold plated metal alloys.

The creation of his company was also motivated by the difficulty of finding swimsuits made of eco-responsible materials. In this sense, the nylon fiber is recycled: instead of going to draw, the supplier reuses rubber, mats, tires to extract the petrollium and reuse the fiber. In the packaging too, everything is done to reduce the ecological footprint: email invoice, no labels and we use recycled envelopes and thank-you cards. In its ecological approach, government authorities have shown its interest in supporting the ecological transition, which motivates it to keep its manufacturing process as it is.

Daily challenges

For Naomie, the biggest challenge is to become a marketing expert to promote her products. "Artisans are not always good at communicating the brand image they want for their products." For example, she admits promoting body diversity in her visuals is a constant challenge. Little by little, she succeeded in transposing the personalized service online, among other things by having introduced the chat available on the Selfish Swimwear website.

Notice to those for whom finding a bathing suit is like looking for a needle in a haystack: Naomie confirms that there is no customer who has left her workshop without a bathing suit... The most difficult thing is to find it. choose!

Reviewed by MF Editorial