Year of Ours Debuts Swimwear
Los Angeles-based activewear and lifestyle label Year of Ours, founded by Eleanor Haycock alongside designer Alejandra Hernandez in 2016, is expanding into the swimwear category.
“When we started Year of Ours seven years ago, Eleanor and I always wanted to expand into swim. There were opportunities throughout the years to do different collaborations with swimwear brands, but we held off because we believed it would be stronger if we launched our own collection,” Hernandez told WWD. “We started the development process March 1, 2022, and it took us a year to get here.”
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“We are really looking at it as a new category, rather than a one-off collection,” Haycock added. “We learned with active that having core styles is really key to a brand. If you have 30 new styles a month, it’s hard to translate that and get people excited about those fits. So we started with a lot of concepts and ideas and really realized we need 8 to 10 core styles to perfect in a fabric we love, and really run with that for our first year in swim. Hopefully it will be like our Veronica [legging], Football [bra and legging] or Gym Bra — where girls love the fit, want it in every color and really relate to the bodies.”
Year of Ours’ debut swimwear, which launches Thursday, serves as an extension of its signature activewear with colorful ribbed styles with jersey swim lining in sizes XS to 2X. For instance, a rib string bikini with classic tie-top and bottom; a cropped swim T bra with short sleeves and scoop neck, and new takes on the brand’s signature lace-up football styles, including a V-shape high-waisted bikini bottom and a one-piece suit. The line, priced $79 to $160, also includes a selection of cover-ups including mesh layers and terry cloth sets.
“This is for the woman who’s looking for a great-fitting swimwear, that’s what we do at Year of Ours. We’re perfectionists with fit and quality and we’re all about women’s bodies,” she said, adding that like the activewear, the swimwear is fitted on the brand’s internal team of six women of different sizes and heights. As the brand expands the category, it is planning to add more core bodies, expand the lifestyle cover-ups and potentially extend into maternity swimwear.
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