Georgiana Huddart Is Winning Against the Strong Current
LONDON — Just in time for the London sunshine.
Sustainable swimwear brand Hunza G is opening its first pop-up store, in the Seven Dials neighborhood in Covent Garden.
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The 1,583-square-foot space will open its doors on April 29 stocking the brand’s swimsuits, apparel, kid’s range and accessories, as well as exclusives such as its heart collection, stripes, a small ready-to-wear collaboration with Liberty Ross’ Flipper’s and pieces in black Lurex, which is a new fabric for Hunza G.
The pop-up store comes off the back of successful setups inside luxury department stores such as Selfridges and Harrods, where Hunza G sold more stock than any other brand in the category without the company having to pay for the space it occupied.
“It was a clear indication that our customers want to go into the Hunza G world and we don’t have a physical presence in London, so a stand-alone store would be the next thing as a London-based brand. Obviously with swimwear you don’t immediately think of London,” Georgiana Huddart, creative director of the brand, told WWD on a Zoom call.
She relaunched the ‘80s swimwear label in 2015, which also had a shot of fame in the ‘90s with Julia Roberts wearing its white and black cutout dress in “Pretty Woman.”
The interior of the store will take inspiration from Art Deco and Mexican luxury boutique hotels with artwork from artist Alba Hodsoll, who specializes in line drawings of nature and the body. The walls will be pink with navy velvet curtains inside.
Huddart’s ambitions for Hunza G are ambitious and realistic at the same time. The brand has been growing by 100 percent year-on-year and during the second half of the pandemic it grew by 200 percent without any digital marketing, which the brand only delved into six months ago.
Thirty percent of customers are from the U.S. with another 30 percent from the U.K. — the remaining 40 percent come from Europe and the rest of the world.
Hunza G makes 400,000 units a year at the moment, which is the maximum the company can produce with the manufacturer it works with, despite a demand that’s triple of what’s being made.
“With growth we have come into production issues, which everybody has, so we’ve just been managing our back of the house basically for the last two years to try and get ourselves ready to see what potential there is,” said Huddart, hinting that the brand will have two upcoming collaborations with people, one launching in June and another in October.
Her focus is set on cementing the U.S. market and even though the idea of diving into the men’s category has come up, it’s still very much a thought rather than reality.
The strongest arm of the business is swimwear, which Huddart said she won’t steer away from even with an apparel line integrated well into the brand.
“With the ready-to-wear, it feels a little bit more intimidating, maybe a little bit more scary or a little bit more specific. It still does well, but I’d say the average customer buying from us is coming to us for our swimwear,” added Huddart, explaining that the ready-to-wear business had been growing strongly but since the recession it has plateaued. Meanwhile, swimwear continues “to grow at a rapid rate of knots.”
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