Swim Society

The idea behind Swim Society was first incepted in 2018 on a beach in the Maldives where our founder, Montana Brown was discussing with her friends how different an experience everyone has when shopping swimwear. Finding something you love the design off, supports you and shows off your assets whilst also being great quality was essentially impossible. Hence Swim Society was born. Fast forward to 2019, Swim Society was founded. Leading the way for an all inclusive, by default, brand.

After launching our first collection in April 2019, we went on to launch three subsequent collections. Shooting with so many incredible women who have since become loyal ambassadors to our brand.

For our second collection, we opened our casting net to include ‘real’ people. We asked our community to put themselves forward for our campaign shoot, opening up our audience to all those body shapes they feel are totally under represented in mainstream fashion.

Since then the brand has continue to grow, having been sold on ASOS, Topshop and other high street retailers. We’ve continued to work with incredible people and been so grateful to receive features from the likes of Glamour, Cosmo and Heat.

As we progressed on our journey, we felt that there was more we could do as a brand. We built such a supportive community, we felt that it was only right that we continued to evolve and start giving more back.

In 2020, we relaunched Swim Society with a sustainable product range. This meant completely overhauling everything we had done before, learning new processes and understanding how this changes our brand, proud to be using recyclable material in all our products.

This is produced from using recycled post-consumer polyester made from things like plastics which have been collected, sorted by hand and melted down. There is always more we can do, but this is our starting point.

Our second sustainable collection, shot on the beautiful Greek island of Milos. This collection was our first entry into an actual summer season. With super bold prints and beaming colours and of course the same sustainable fabrics, we really tested ourselves with this one. Not only did we part ways with our service provider, we moved to a brand new factory and achieved one of our goals to produce within Europe a lot earlier than planned.

As just a team of three with help from our design intern, we designed, produced and shot this entire collection. Plus this was so special for us as this was our first chance to shoot a collection with our glorious open casting girls and it brought a whole new life to our proud achievement.

OUR ETHOS

NO CATEGORISATION

Swim Society relies on the idea that swimwear should give YOU the option to wear what you feel most comfortable in. We don’t categorise our styles or force you into a box you don’t want to be in. We are inclusive by default, because we should be.

Swim Society, is and shall continuously be the first of its kind in that we promote absolutely no categorisation in our designs. No ‘Plus’ ‘Petite’ or ‘Tall’, just every design for every size, no variation.

Our society is formed on the idea that you shouldn’t have to adhere to other people’s beauty standards. If you want to cover up or show it off, no matter your shape or size, we support you. Swimwear should be your choice and not what someone else says it should be.

TRANSPARENCY

In our transition to producing sustainable swimwear, we know that this presents lots of questions for our brand. We are therefore pledging to be transparent with you, our customers to make sure we are not leaving anything out.

We don't have it all figured out yet and we aren't doing this to show off, but we want to take you along for our journey and ahow you as much as we can along the way.

Take the first steps by reading more about this on our promise and our story pages.

SUSTAINABILITY

Our swimwear is produced ethically and made from recycled polyester with a minimum recyclable content of 85%. We strive to be much higher than this, and our first collection has launched with a 97% recyclable content. As a brand, we take our commitment to our consumers and the environment very seriously and we will always strive to do better in an ever changing fast fashion landscape.

We pledge to be 100% transparent, allowing you, our customers, to be part of our journey. We aren't perfect yet, but we want you to know that and are always keen for feedback on ways to improve to make actionable changes to make the world a better place.

We know that as a sustainable brand, we have to do more than just use recycled material. The effect of brands on our planet is exponential so we have to work together in order to reverse that effect. However, we are also putting our hat in the ring of one of the most competitive markets, trying to give a sustainable brand the spotlight it deserves hoping that this in turn will give consumers an accessible sustainable alternative to their usual shopping habits. As we planned our first incredible trip to the Maldives, it was obvious to us that offsetting our carbon emissions was non-negotiable and that, is where we found MoreTrees.

MoreTrees, a small business just like ours, came to us with the opportunity to offset our carbon as a business by calculating the number of trees needed to offset those emissions. They utilise worldwide partners in order to plant trees in deforested areas, plus they allow all brands to be much more transparent about their effect on our planet. Alan, CEO of MoreTrees calculated our trip to the Maldives would emit 2,559kg of carbon and we would need to plant 117 trees (9 trees per person to be exact) to offset this, so that’s exactly what they did for us.

We plant a tree for every order placed. This is something we pay for as a business at no extra cost to you, to help us 'offset' the carbon emissions associated with it's delivery and production. What we have learned is that this process is called CARBON SEQUESTING. This is the process of storing and securing carbon from the atmosphere. Around 25% of global carbon emissions are captured and stored by plant rich areas, such as forests. So when comitting to planting trees we pledge to sequester that carbon by contributing to the forests ability to capture and secure carbon from the atmosphere.

So for example if 1 tree equates to 1lbs of carbon, when that tree is planted in the future, that 1lb carbon would be sequested from the environment and hence offset the 1lb that has been emitted. So rather than reversing that carbon being released we cancel it out by planting that tree and storing future carbon emissions. Technically we offset the carbon emitted but offsetting is actually a whole different process which involves lots of different climate initiatives. We've updated our site if you want to find out more and hope that this helps you all understand a little more about those climate change initiatives we are seeing so much more today!

Ultimately MoreTrees is our starting point, to being more aware of our effect on this planet. Sometimes, that doesn’t have to be a huge change, just understanding how we can evoke change is enough to start.