Fredericton’s Sisterly Swimwear Selected for Miami Swim Week
FREDERICTON – Sisterly Swimwear, a local Fredericton swimwear company, has recently been selected to participate in Miami Swim Week 2023. Isabelle Leger of Sisterly Swimwear says that she is beyond excited for the upcoming event.
In the summer of 2020, Leger and her sister, who co-founded Sisterly Swimwear, started their business. After not being able to find swimwear that made them feel flattered and comfortable, the sisters decided to create the perfect suit themselves.
“My sister and I, we’d always known that we wanted to start a business, a fashion line of some sort together,” Leger tells Huddle.
Leger says that the company is all about empowering other women and women in business. Over the years since they have opened, Sisterly Swimwear has supported a variety of woman-owned local businesses.
“We’ve always wanted as much opportunities as we can to support other women in business,” she says. “We’ve had one woman make us stickers; we’ve had another do some photography for us. Those are all things that we could do ourselves but, instead, we wanted to help promote others.”
Along with this, Sisterly Swimwear is a “slow-fashion, ethical, and sustainable swimwear brand.” Leger says that it is important to them that the brand holds true to this statement.
Sisterly Swimwear gets their fabric from an environmentally friendly company in Italy, who Leger says treats the employees ethically, due to the higher labour standards in Italy. She also says that the company recycles old fabrics that are on the way to the landfill to create new ones, recycles water throughout production process, and is even powered by wind.
Originally, Leger says that she and her sister were creating all the pieces themselves but over time they have had to hire seamstresses to keep up with the increasing demand.
“We pay [our seamstresses] per piece, so it allows the seamstress to decide whether they want to take their time with a piece, or whether they want to make a bunch of stuff really quickly and then get their month’s [pay] in a day,” she tells Huddle. “It helps them kind of get to choose their lifestyle.”
Leger also says that Sisterly Swimwear is very size inclusive with its swimwear. After having a friend who always struggled to find an affordable swimsuit in her size, they took it upon themselves to help women from all over who have a similar struggle.
Unlike typical brands, Sisterly Swimwear does not use the sizing guide of “small, medium, large”.
“We changed our sizing so it’s not small, medium, large,” says Leger. “We use all of these adjectives [where] the goal is to make women have fun when they’re finding their size.”
In early April, the Leger sisters received news that Sisterly Swimwear was selected to participate in Miami Swim Week 2023. After having a friend suggest that they apply, they did so with little faith that they would be selected. They were beyond shocked when they heard that they had been selected to participate.
Sisterly Swimwear will be a part of the industry fashion show, which is by invite only, where eight models will show their newest line of swimwear: the 90s Lovers Collection. They will then be given the opportunity to participate in a trade show for wholesalers to purchase their products.
“It’ll be a huge opportunity for us, and I think we’re still in a bit of a state of shock that we’ll be going,” Leger tells Huddle. “The amount of exposure that we’re going to get for our small brand is going to be insane I think.”
The event will take place in Miami on July 4th-10th for the general public, with the industry show occurring on the 12th.
Ryley Roach is a Huddle student intern, based in Fredericton. Send her your feedback and story ideas: [email protected]