Meet The Two Women From New Brunswick Changing Men’s Swimwear
SAINT JOHN– Two young women from New Brunswick want to change men’s swimwear with their new fashion line.
Katie Carpenter and Ashley Lemmon are the founders of FYN Swim, a men’s swimwear company that aims to make swim trunks guys will actually want to wear.
Carpenter is a University of New Brunswick business graduate from Saint John who now lives in Montreal with her partner, NHL player Nathan Beaulieu. Carpenter met the Buffalo Sabres defenceman when he played with the Saint John Seadogs team that won the Memorial Cup in 2011.
Lemmon, also a UNB graduate from Fredericton, is the founder of Nora Swimwear, a women’s swimwear line. Her home base is now Ottawa.
Carpenter said she and Lemmon have been long-distance friends for years and bonded over their interest in fashion.
RELATED: 10 New Brunswick Fashion Designers Creating Some Serious Style
“We always admired what the other was doing. Then [Ashley] launched Nora Swimwear couple years ago and I had a necktie line,” says Carpenter. “It sounds so random, but with my partner playing hockey, it worked out.”
Then last summer, the two friends came up with the idea to collaborate on a men’s swimwear line.
“Last summer we worked six to eight months on it before we even launched it,” says Carpenter. “We’re finally launched and this summer we’re really going to work towards building the brand.”
FYN Swim markets itself as a swim trunk guys will actually enjoy wearing. No more ugly patterns, uncomfortable materials, lack of support, and chafing that often comes with other swim shorts. FYN has designed a customized trunk with a built-in Italian fabric lycra brief with mesh panels to provide the best comfort and support.
“You can officially say goodbye to all those issues. We refer to them as ‘the comfiest shorts you’ve ever worn,’ ” says Carpenter.
“We use the slogan, ‘made to fit you the way it should.’ It’s a custom built-in brief designed with superior comfort in mind. There’s muscle control, it’s quick drying, there’s breathable mesh.”
FYN Swim trunks are not just designed to wear at the beach. Lemmon says they are designed so they can be comfortably worn throughout any summer adventures.
“We’re really targeting the guy that is really active and social with their friends. The person that puts on a pair of shorts and wears it for a full-weekend getaway with all his buddies,” she says. “The guy who wants something that’s stylish. Something that they could wear both sitting in a car for 10 hours on a road trip, to wearing it out to a pub and still looking like you’re put together while also being very comfortable.”
Having only launched a few months ago, Carpenter and Lemmon say they’re using this summer to focus on building the FYN Swim brand online. This includes using social media influencers, who are people with typically large followings to partner with brand and businesses to promote products.
RELATED: A Look at New Brunswick’s Brand Influencers
Influencer marketing is something Carpenter herself has been doing over the last year on her Instagram account. She says when done properly, it’s the most effective way to market a product.
“As long as the content is being properly made and promoted and on-brand, it’s the best way to really get your product out there,” she says. “You can reach so many people and so many places just by a post on social media. It’s crazy the power that social media gives us today. We’re really going to try to utilize that with FYN.”
Influencer marketing was something Lemmon used to promote her women’s line, Nora Swimwear. She says it makes marketing products more personal than traditional forms of advertising.
“People want to have something that is memorable and seeing it on their friend’s [social media feed] is going to be a lot more memorable than seeing it on an ad or a flyer,” says Lemmon. “It has more of a personal aspect when you have a person wearing your product and them talking about it to their friends.”
Once they build FYN’s market online, Carpenter and Lemmon plan to take the brand to retail.
“We think it will be something that will do really well in the retail space. Based on what we’ve gathered so far, men are more ‘touch and feel’ purchasers,” says Lemmon.
“They want to see things in person, whereas women are more inclined to just buy something online without seeing it. We really hope to expand on retail and wholesale operations and eventually hit as a global brand. We can see it being very big in both Europe and Australia.”
Though they no longer live in New Brunswick, both founders keep strong ties to their home province. For Carpenter, Saint John is where many of her friends and family are and where she and partner Nathan Beaulieu continue to do work with organizations like the city’s Boys and Girls Club.
“The community there will always be home for me. The reason I moved to Montreal is that I think there’s more opportunity, especially with a clothing line,” she says. “But New Brunswick will always be home. I love it there.”
RELATED: How A Local Designer Can Support N.B. Fashion Industry Creatives From Toronto
Lemmon still makes regular trips home to Fredericton. She says it was the support of those back home that helped bring her career in fashion to where it is today.
“New Brunswick is very much home for me. I try to go there every three months or so. My family still lives there,” she says.
“I owe so much of [Nora Swimwear’s growth] to New Brunswick and how they supported it. I see them now rallying behind FYN and it’s really cool to see my hometown being so supportive and awesome about that.”