We spoke with Heather Caye Brown, the awesome female founder of inclusive swimwear NIGHT DIVE SWIM, a body positive brand.

We spoke about all about the shifting bikini industry, sustainability, XS – 4XL sizing, and tips for feeling good & focusing on the amazing experiences we’ll have in the water!

P.S. Next week we’ll be running a $100 gift card Giveaway with NIGHT DIVE SWIM on our Instagram, so stay tuned!

Hey Heather, thank you so much for joining us! First question: What’s your opinion on the state of inclusivity for women in watersports?

I’m so excited about the start of women in watersports being more inclusivity. It feels like everyone is slowly turning the corner and a wave of body inclusivity is about to happen.

Of course, this is much slower and later than it should be happening, but at least it’s a start. I created my company to shine a light on women of all sizes and ages deserving and wanting to wear fashionable and functional swimwear because of challenges I had faced personally.

When you’re the largest woman on a surfboard, or SUP, or snorkelling, it can be intimidating to be surrounded by people who “look” like they’re surfers or more active, or not be able to find a big enough size wetsuit to wear, etc. However, I was determined to not let that keep me from doing things I’m passionate about or wanted to try.

What do you think needs to change?

There needs to be more mainstream representation of women of all sizes who are in watersports – including brands branching out and expanding their size ranges.

As a small business, we’re working so hard to be more and more inclusive each year, despite financial challenges in doing so. I would love to see the bigger brands that have the ability to move the dial forward for inclusivity, take the step to make some more change.  Leaving it up to small businesses to test the waters to show more representation and extend size ranges is difficult to make true change.

From our own experience, we sold our swim to a very popular retailer our first two years in business, and were treated as a “test” for them (we figured that out in the end). They had never sold up to size 3X before, or produced sustainable/recycled fabric swimwear. When we gave them the option to buy from us again and we could extend their size options to include up to 5X last year, they passed. They now only offer up to size XXL, “borrowed” our most popular swim style to sell on their own, and started using recycled fabrics in some swimwear. Besides being baffled at all of that, we were even more shocked when they didn’t want to extend their size range. This large company that is extremely successful could have made more strides to be inclusive.

Could you tell us briefly your personal story of why you wanted to create both sustainable and size inclusive swimwear for women?

After 16 years designing for large companies, I left the corporate design world and launched NIGHT DIVE to create an inclusive swim brand that aimed to spread self-confidence and focused on ethically made and sustainable swimwear.

I wanted the freedom to shape the perception of beauty standards in the swimwear industry and to make decisions that are better for the environment.

I wanted to be able to choose (and have the final decision) to use recycled fabrics, even if they are more costly. For me, my journey didn’t begin with making a ton of money as the goal…it was to do good.

I focused on spreading self-confidence and self-love, and to make everyone feel confident in a bikini. Showcasing a range of body types and shapes on social media and the ecommerce platform was extremely important to me.

The market offers very few swimwear options made in recycled fabric. The swimwear industry also has very few premium brands that offer sizing up to XL, let alone beyond that that are fashion forward and on-trend.

Could you tell us about the sizing, from XS to 3XL?

We have done something unique in the swimwear landscape by fitting swim on a size Large, rather than the typical industry standard of a size Small, which ensures our fits will be able to be more body friendly across all sizes.

We have also made adjustments based on feedback from customers to perfect our fits. We have just expanded to size 4XL in our best selling colours and hope to keep extending our size range to be even more inclusive. Our goal is to add up to size 6X by next summer.

What tips do you have for women reading this who might feel a bit self-conscious about how they look when doing water sports?

For any woman who’s self-conscious about the way you look doing watersports – a few things that I’ve focused on are:

1. You DESERVE to live your best life

2. Focus on living in the moment and take joy what you’re doing

3. If anyone is looking at you, they’re probably checking you out 😉

4. Life is too short to care what others think – are you going to look back on these moments and think of them, or remember how amazing you felt the first time you shredded a wave, or saw a dolphin swimming next to you!?

Who are your favourite inspirational water women that we should look up/read about?

@curvysurfergirl, @victoria_mermaid_ aka Victoria Ross who is my dear friend, my first “real” Surf instructor, and mer-sister (and owner of the amazing Mermaid Collective jewellery).

P.S. Don’t forget to enter our $100 gift card Giveaway with NIGHT DIVE SWIM on our Instagram!